Mount Logan Trip Report, May 19 - June 21, 2009.
THIS TRIP REPORT is UNDER CONSTRUCTION.
PLEASE COME BACK LATER.
WHAT IS BELOW is just a scheleton, ALSO MANY PICTURES are
MISSING.
Before the Trip, Preparations.
Climbing Permit:
Any party considering a trip to Mount Logan should first check out
the
information
provided by the Kluane National Park where Mount Logan is located.
Within the Kluane WEB information, locate the subsection about
mountaineering and the requirements stipulated in order to
obtain a mountaineering permit.
Our expedition had the official name "Logan09 - Bergen Fjellsport to Logan", essentially
"Logan 2009 - Bergen Mountaineering Club to Logan."
As part of the permit process, the Kluane Park has produced a video about mountaineering
in the Icefields that they require all mountaineering visitors to see. Although there is no
fixed deadline for applications, it is highly recommended to start the permit process
several months before the intended trip.
The recommended period for climbing Mount Logan is in May and early June. In 2009, the
activity on the mountain was quite compressed, the first ascent in 2009 took place on May 22, while
our team was the last team to summit on June 3rd, ie. within a two week period only.
Clothing, Boots, Tents and Climbing Gear:
Good clothing for winter mountaineering in Norway is largely adequate. Thus, the team
members had most of what was deemed necessary. A few supplemental purchases are
almost always done, if not as an excuse to get a piece of equipment that has been wanted for
some time.
Unlike what is often quoted in American literature, we all believe in a first inner layer of
wool. Devold, "worn by Norwegians since 1853", can be recommended, there is also Arctic Brynje,
warm inner clothing that can be used every day on extended trips like this one. A second layer
of wool should be taken as sleepware, this layer can then also be used on summit day for extra
warmth. As a next layer, we all used fleece. Normally, one would then put a windbreaker as the
final outer layer. A single, extra fleece may also be useful, I carried a Patagonia fleece with
no wind resistance at all, then a second fleece having a shell for intermediate wind protection.
People have different preferences wrt. socks, I prefer a single, warm sock made of wool, a few times
I double this with a medium thick wool sock inside the heavy duty one.
Gloves are extremely important and any team should carry some spare, high quality gloves. I carried two
spare sets for team use and Olav made good use of a pair of down gloves to keep fingers warm above
Basin Camp. Finally, a good hat that keeps your head warm is needed, with adverse weather this must of
course be supplemented by the hood from your mountain jacket. We all carried a down jacket as well, but
mine stayed in the pack and was never used.
We carried three tents, two large VE-25 to be used as comfortable camp tents. These tents can easily
accommodate three men, however, for long duration climbs like this, it is certainly extra comfort to
have ample space in camp.
We carried a single 60 meter rope for glacier travel and general team security, 4 snow pickets, 2 deadman
snow anchors and a couple of ice screws. The latter was mainly for crevasse rescue situations, while the
snow pickets were
Harness, prusisk loops as well as crampons and an ice axe completed the personal gear.
Food and Cooking:
We ran a pretty standard and simple regime wrt. food and meals.
We carried two multi fuel (Primus) propane/buthane as well as (MSR) white gas stoves plus
spare parts (a spare burner). Two pots per stove, 12 liter of white gas and 4 containers
of propane/buthane gas. Normal practice is to buy the white gas at Base Camp, in order to
avoid taking it on each and every flight.
Breakfast was always oat porridge with brown sugar and raisins as well as some hazelnuts.
Lunch was biscuits, power bars and general trail mix, while a freeze dried standard dinner
served us as the main meal every afternoon. A couple of better tasting meals had certainly been
nice, however the general ability to enjoy good food almost always deteriorates at altitude,
thus it is not obvious that such extra "luxury" had been effective with respect to team
performance.
Experience from past trips to Greenland continued to hold true here. On 2-4 week trips in
arctic environments with generally hard physical work every day,
the above food regime will
leave a deficiency of about a quarter to a half kilogram of body weight per day.
Thus, each team member lost somewhere
between 5 and 10 kilogram on this trip, not necessarily bad. We carried
a full week of provisions that we gave away at high camp the day after we came back down from the summit.
Similarly, we ended up giving away almost two full containers of white gas before descending from
Basin Camp.
Day -2, May 19th. We fly from Norway.
Our taxi from the airport in Anchorage to
Earth Bed and Breakfast cost US dollar 20,
the taxidriver did not know the place and needed the street address in order to get
us there. Arrival, local time (- 10 hours) at 2300. High time to catch some sleep in
our assigned (basement) room, a big room with 4 beds scattered along various walls.
Day -1, May 20th. Shopping in Anchorage.
We woke up reasonably (given the jet-leg) and had breakfast that the friendly
ladies at Earth Bed&Breakfast had already prepared.
call and pickup the next morning at 0800 was readily confirmed.
We then set out to buy all the various items that deliberately had been planned
for Anchorage, partly to save weight on the airplane and partly due to the
US (protectionist) regime of not permitting even freeze-dried food to be
imported. After a brief walk, we located the Anchorage REI store, a large grocery
store named CARR, and a somewhat smaller shop called Alaska Mountaineering.
Freeze-dried mountain food for dinner was bought at REI, they had a wide selection,
but most packages were kind of low on calories. We looked around and mainly selected
based on calories, realizing that some bags advertising "2 Servings" would really
only serve one person. The day came to an end with a nice team dinner downtown Anchorage.
Day 0, May 21st. We travel from Anchorage to the Alaska-Canadian border.
the guy that slowed us down a bit.
May 22nd. Good skiing to the base of Mount Logan.
May 23rd. We ski up the lower half of Kings Trench.
this has now lasted quite some time. How long can this continue?
May 24th. We arrive at Kings Col.
May 25th. Rest day, we explore the lower part of the Icefall.
is definitely milder than what we have had in the last several days.
May 26th. We make a carry to Camp 4.
May 27th. We move up to "The Castle" also called Camp 4.
May 28th. We bypass the big crevasse and carry to Camp 5.
roaring wind at the higher elevations and clouds are covering up most of the terrain below us.
May 29th. We move up to Camp 5 - the footballfield.
higher up. I brought some extra pairs of heavy duty gloves, one action is to make Olav try these.
May 30th. We make a carry to Camp 6 - a windy col.
has been bad enough to prevent ascending up here to Basin Camp.
May 31th. We decide to take an extra rest day for acclimatization.
June 1st. We move up to Camp 6 - our highest camp.
June 2nd. We cross Prospector Pass and move to Camp 7.
June 3rd. SUMMIT DAY !!
Detailed pictures from the summit area.
Since there is a bit of confusion about the details near the summit of Mount Logan and since
many teams either fail to climb the proper summit or end up climbing the West Summit instead of
the main summit, what follows here is a fairly detailed and illustrated description.
The best way to climb the proper summit of Mount Logan is to establish the last camp fairly low,
at the lower end of the valley that extends down from Prospector Pass. See the description of our Camp 7 above.
The route (see above) climbs the upper part of a large glacier and
gradually the summit part of Mount Logan comes into
view. In this picture, the route continues up the glacier towards the broad saddle between the West Peak (outside to the right in this picture) and Mount Logan,
then curves left and climbs
the smooth saddle that can be seen (sunny) to the left of Mount Logan (to the left of the
slope that is in a shaddow.)
It can be seen from this picture, that the summit area consists of a small (false) summit followed by a longer summit ridge. The summit is at the very
end of this ridge. One need not climb completely across the first summit, it may be
partially traversed on the left side (as seen in this picture).
The final ridge is coming into view, one can see that there is more terrain behind the first steepish slope.
One will then
arrive at a quite small, but distinct saddle where the summit ridge begins.
In this picture, we are
in the last saddle, unfortunately, the view is lokking back towards the East summit of Logan.
Looking up from this saddle, we can see the beginning of the summit ridge,
this photo is credit Thomas Laussermair, a participant on the commercial Canadian
expedition (Canada west Mountain School, led by Rich Prohaska) that was
on the mountain at the same time (they summited two days before us).
This ridge is fairly steep and falls off a long
way to the left (when ascending), the slopes gets steeper as one moves towards the summit.
After the steady climb up the first part of the ridge, one arrives at a section which is almost flat, this is
followed by a new, rising ridge, narrow, but rising more gently than the first section. One
can see this part of the ridge quite well on this picture.
Åke is still not at the very summit, but he is getting quite close.
Finally, the ridge tops out and
one has arrived at the highest point of Canada. The famous Hummingbird Ridge
begins here and runs all the way down 4000 vertical meter. (Climbed in 1965, 35 days, Allen Steck)
One should really NOT move beyond the highest point!
Next, this picture shows me sitting with one leg down either side of the ridge, while Åke is
patiently waiting for more space to free up. The picture gives a pretty good outline of the upper part
of the summit ridge.
After sitting for a while, Espen and Helge moves down and
it is my turn to stand on the very top of Canada.
The descent provides further details of the ridge.
Here, Espen has just arrived at the top of the steepish ridge.
This picture looking back towards the summit is taken at the same time
(within one second).
We are using the full length of a 60 meter rope and one can see that our last man,
Åke, is already well along the ridge below the summit.
Next, Åke follows me as we descend
the last ridge that ends in the saddle between Mount Logan and the false summit.
Finally, we are back down in the saddle from where the
the summit ridge starts out.
June 4th. Return to Camp 4 - the Castle.
downhill, this had been a pretty tough day for everybody.
June 5th. Descent via King Col and down to Camp 1.
fairly early.
June 6th. Ski back to the Alaska border.
state of Washington.
June 7th. We fly out and visit the Ultima Thule Lodge.
state of Washington.
June 8th. We hike around the forest near the lodge.
state of Washington.
June 9th. We fly to Mount Blackburn and climb to camp at 3900 meter.
state of Washington.
June 10th. SUMMIT DAY !!
state of Washington.
June 11th. A steep descent into fog and snow.
state of Washington.
June 12th. Snow and more snow, no pickup by Paul.
state of Washington.
June 13th. Snow and more snow, no pickup by Paul.
state of Washington.
June 14th. Snow and more snow, no pickup by Paul.
state of Washington.
June 15th. A short break promised by Wendy, we fly to Ultima Thule.
state of Washington.
June 16th. We fly out and drive to Anchorage.
state of Washington.
June 17th. We rest and recover.
state of Washington.
June 18th. We go watching for whales.
state of Washington.
June 19th - 21st. We travel to Norway.
state of Washington.
After the Trip, Wrapping Up.
distance as well as elevation and average slope is available. Also, see the detailed readings of
heart rate and blood oxygen saturation as plotted here.
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