September 15, 2015
Jabou Ri - 2, Eric/Ryan - 0
An alpine start is probably my least favorite thing in the world, but we figured if we were going to beat the weather we would have to start early.
At three am, the snow was crisp and firm under our mountaineering boots and we made quick progress across the lateral moraine and glacier at the base of Jabou Ri. It was easy going following our previous day's attempt which we decided to chalk up as an 'acclimatization climb'.
Since we knew the terrain and the snow was more firm we decide to forgo any anchors or belay and quickly climbed to the the ridge where we had turned around. It was a bluebird day. In clear skies, we could see that the west side of the ridge plunged down several thousand feet. Not traversing it in a whiteout was a good idea. Our route from here would be to continue along the ridge line to the summit roughly 1,000 feet and a little over half a mile traverse.
From the first ridge, we were able to make easy progress up a wide incline. Then, the ridge narrowed again and we hand to side step and then front point. At this point, Ryan was out in lead setting up a running belay. While the snow was relatively firm there were a few places that had sloughed off and it was sheer ice. We made our way slowly across the face climbing upward the the top of the ridge proper again, another knife edge spine.
Climbing up the 50 degree ridge, Ryan began post holing. When I started up a little later I could see that there was a 12 inch air space underneath the snow. The clouds began rolling in and Ryan called back to me saying that the route from here was very dangerous. The knife edge ridge had a cornice that swapped back and forth from the west and east. That combined with the unstable snowpack made the decision to turn around easy.
However, getting back down was anything but easy and we slowly climbed down willing our ice axes and crampon points to stick into the now melting ice. Eventually, we got to a wide space on the ridge and relaxed for the first time in several hours. Dehydrated and hungry, we quickly ate a few Skratch energy chews. Then back across another narrow ridge to where we had stuck an MSR avi probe to mark our spot for down climbing.
In another hour, we were back at our advanced base camp tired, frustrated but most importantly, alive.
We rested for a while, gathered up our gear and walked down the glacier to our base camp where we are a quick meal and went to sleep at 5 pm before the sun had set.
At three am, the snow was crisp and firm under our mountaineering boots and we made quick progress across the lateral moraine and glacier at the base of Jabou Ri. It was easy going following our previous day's attempt which we decided to chalk up as an 'acclimatization climb'.
Since we knew the terrain and the snow was more firm we decide to forgo any anchors or belay and quickly climbed to the the ridge where we had turned around. It was a bluebird day. In clear skies, we could see that the west side of the ridge plunged down several thousand feet. Not traversing it in a whiteout was a good idea. Our route from here would be to continue along the ridge line to the summit roughly 1,000 feet and a little over half a mile traverse.
From the first ridge, we were able to make easy progress up a wide incline. Then, the ridge narrowed again and we hand to side step and then front point. At this point, Ryan was out in lead setting up a running belay. While the snow was relatively firm there were a few places that had sloughed off and it was sheer ice. We made our way slowly across the face climbing upward the the top of the ridge proper again, another knife edge spine.
Climbing up the 50 degree ridge, Ryan began post holing. When I started up a little later I could see that there was a 12 inch air space underneath the snow. The clouds began rolling in and Ryan called back to me saying that the route from here was very dangerous. The knife edge ridge had a cornice that swapped back and forth from the west and east. That combined with the unstable snowpack made the decision to turn around easy.
However, getting back down was anything but easy and we slowly climbed down willing our ice axes and crampon points to stick into the now melting ice. Eventually, we got to a wide space on the ridge and relaxed for the first time in several hours. Dehydrated and hungry, we quickly ate a few Skratch energy chews. Then back across another narrow ridge to where we had stuck an MSR avi probe to mark our spot for down climbing.
In another hour, we were back at our advanced base camp tired, frustrated but most importantly, alive.
We rested for a while, gathered up our gear and walked down the glacier to our base camp where we are a quick meal and went to sleep at 5 pm before the sun had set.