Emphatic

July 25, 2022

Guide: Alex
Participants: Mike, Katharina
Time: 9 hours

On a cloud filled morning we hiked up a fairly good trail which had been cut into the morraine above camp during the previous weeks. After about an hour of travel, we arrived at a snow field beside the Austerity icefall. We switched to crampons and walked along the low angle slope before Alex switched us into short roping mode for a steep section through a bit of a shooting gallery of rocks from the left and icefall from the right. This was short lived though, and we moved quickly through this dangerous section to reach the glacier.

Hiking the trail above camp

Switching the rope to glacier travel mode, we climbed further up a moderate slope and then our objective was in sight, only a 500m walk across a flat snow field. As we approached, Alex suggested that we could try the south summit, which looked like it might be a fun rock climb. Kat and I were game, so we scrambled a messy loose section and then obtained the ridge which was fortunately much nicer stone. We went up four or so pitches of 5.fun climbing up here and then dropped into the moat between the glacier and the rock as the ridge got steeper. Some easy scrambling in the moat and finally climbing out of it by stemming between slabby rock and the firm snow wall. We reached the false summit after five hours and sat down for lunch with a view here, all of us very happy with how well the route went.

Glacier above the icefall

Approaching Emphatic peak. We traversed the ridge from the left skyline to the summit.

Alex leading the first loose pitch

Hanging out at the belay

Much cleaner rock higher up

Since we had nowhere else to be today and the weather looked like it was holding, we decided to finish the main objective of the actual summit of Emphatic peak. This climb went fairly quickly as for the most part it was 4th class scrambling, though we did pitch out one section of super exposed knife edge to gain the summit plateau. A short walk from here and we were on top to enjoy the 360 degree views for a while.

Summit of Emphatic peak

The descent was a down climb to the col between the two summits and then we descended steep snow back onto the glacier. One really steep pitch of snow was lowered/rapelled, where at one point I lost my footing and tried skiing for a bit until the belay from Alex combined with my ice axe stopped me (I hate being lowered). Once down on the glacier flats we simply reversed the route from the morning all the way back to camp. We were the last group in, and after talking to the others, I think we had the most fun day out!

Lowering down the steep snow slope

Final obstacle to the dining tent

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