Blackfeather 2 Traverse

July 27, 2022

Guide: Phil
Participants: Mike, Chris
Time: 9.5 hours

Fairly straightforward hike up the now familiar hike onto the Austerity glacier, where we had a few small crevasses to step over as we made our way up to the col between Belvedere and Blackfeather. From here it was several class 4 or easy 5th pitches to gain the 4th class ridge. None of it was particularly clean climbing, but fun none-the-less. The crux was a squeeze chimney where we had to remove our packs to fit into this slot, and push them along awkwardly ahead as we climbed. The slot was so narrow I could only stand sideways, and even then I was regretting the extra pancake that I ate for breakfast, as squirming motions propelled my body through this section.

Heading towards the Belvedere/Blackfeather col. Our route takes us across the full ridge of the center peak.

Transitioning from the snow

Short roping on the ridge

The squeeze chimney

Upon gaining the ridge line, the climbing was easier but our world became very narrrow. A very exposed "sidewalk in the sky" had me somewhat freaked out. While not technically difficult, a 1m wide platform, about 15m long and slightly angled to the left, made walking across this a bit like walking in the "Crazy Kitchen". I managed to walk the first half, but then the mental game got the best of me and I had to crouch down to cling to the upper edge of the walkway as I crab walked the remaining few meters to safety. A final two pitches of exposed climbing had us on the summit where there was just enough room for the three of us to sit down for a brief lunch.

Approaching the summit in a narrow world

Lunch at the top

Though I was very hungry at this point, I could only choke down half of my sandwich as I had run out of water from travelling several hours in the hot sunshine. The thought of water, probably at least an hour or two away was somewhat concerning, but there was nothing I could do about that here.

The descent was a tricky bit of scrambling, however this went fairly quickly down to the col where we could transition onto the snow. I filled my water bottle with some clean snow excavated out of the moat and hung this on my pack in the sunshine hoping it would melt sufficiently for a drink and as we walked back across the glacier. This worked, as every fifteen minutes or so a mouthful of water was produced. Arriving back at the toe of the glacier, I chugged a liter out of the silty outflow, rock flour be damned, I was so thirsty. I finished up my sandwich as we hiked back for the final hour to camp.

Thirsty walk home

As we descended the morraine slope, we witnessed a house sized block of ice calve off of the icefall. This crashed down into a constriction, turning one of the waterfalls into a slush fall. At some point it wedged in tight and dammed the flow, causing the waterfall to cease for a few minutes. This was short lived however, as the water pressure built up to the point of rupture, resulting in a sudden crashing flow of ice blocks and spray of water down the falls. Again, a pretty cool sight to watch at a distance. We arrived back at camp just in time for appy's.

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