Gwendoline Mountain and Black Fang

July 23, 2013

Another big day. Got up early and on the trail at 05:45. We moved quickly up the glacier, taking turns leading the group. The approach to Gwendoline mountain was fairly straight forward glacier travel and accomplished quickly. Once we gained the ridge, Matt and Cyril went through various techniques of short roping on rock, including terrain and body belays. After practicing for a bit on the benign terrain at the base, we scrambled the ridge employing these techniques extensively as it was a very sustained class 4 route with lots of exposure. After a long way and getting more efficient as we travelled, we finally gained the summit. It was a small perch, so we scrambled down a bit to a blocky area and had a quick lunch. It was now 14:00 and Cyril asked us if we all wanted to haul ass and climb the Black Fang. It was a unanimous yes, so we sped off down scrambling some 3rd class terrain and crossing some easy snow slopes. Along the approach to the Fang was more of the same and its ever impressive upwards thrust beconned us onwards. Just before we reached it there was a ten meter wall of low class 5 climbing which we pitched out. Then we arrived at the fang itself. Since time was now short and only half the group could fit on the rock at one time, it was climbed as two groups with a single leader and multiple simul climbing seconds for the first pitch. The second pitch to the summit was a super exposed 5.4 climb but a heck of a lot of fun. This had to be climbed individually. The view from the summit was spectacular. There was just enough room for us to huddle and enjoy the exposure. Then we had to go back. It was fastest to down climb, so we individually climbed the top pitch, and then down climbed the lower 4th class pitch in pairs or threes. Finally it was a haul ass back across the glacier as fast as we could because now we were late for supper. At one point we had to traverse around an enormous snow bowl on a very steep side slope so this took a while as all steps were made carefully and protected by axe plunges. Finally we made it back to camp, 13 hours after starting. Fortunately the rest of the folks had held off supper by an hour so we got to eat with everyone, even if we did not have a chance to change out of our climbing gear first.

Approaching Gwendoline ridge on some dry glacier ice.