SAMAYA x SAM HENNESSEY & MICHAEL GARDNER

 

 

Samaya Family climbers Sam Hennessey and Michael Gardner spent the month of May 2024 in Alaska, navigating between their various projects and inclement weather. Accompanied by Rob Smith, they opened a new route on the east face of Mount Hunter, called "One Way Out" and rated AI6 M6+ R. For Samaya, Sam recounts this timeless month.

 

"Longer days, melting snowbanks and the appearance of gore-tex-clad men and women wandering the streets in mountain boots: these are the familiar signs of spring in Talkeetna, Alaska. When Rob Smith, Michael Gardner and I found ourselves back in town in early May this year, however, things looked a little different. For the first time in a dozen years, none of us would be guiding on Denali. Instead, we were heading for the mountains with six weeks' worth of food, three pairs of skis each and one foolproof plan: to do what makes sense.

 

In Alaska's Central Range, conditions and weather rarely combine to allow the main objective to be attempted, so it's always best to arrive with a long list of ideas and be able to adapt. This year, we made a logical choice: to be ready both for the ski descents, but also for a few climbing objectives. To put all the odds on our side, we also decided to take out a Denali permit and climb the West Buttress to get seriously acclimatized. By traveling on skis, we'd be fast and ready to adapt to changing conditions... at least, that was the plan!

 

We were extremely overloaded. Pulling the pulkas, particularly in the steep passages, took us longer than we had initially imagined. We wanted to move with ease and speed, but this was far from the case.

 

At least the weather was predictable. We knew it wasn't going to be very good over the coming days, if not weeks. Temperatures were forecast to be freezing.

 

Arriving at Camp 3, at an altitude of over 4,200 metres, we felt ill-equipped. Our clothes weren't suited to the -35°C we were facing, and we spent the whole first night shivering.

 

Our spirits weren't high, but fortunately the forecast was improving. These temperature changes gave us good reason to descend to lower altitudes, where we enjoyed a meal at base camp, with a slightly warmer summit in our sights: Mount Hunter.

 

The east side of Mount Hunter is an inhospitable place, covered in seracs and offering few opportunities for safe passage. In the mid-1980s, Jack Tackle and Jim Donini, great climbers of their time, found the logical line, bypassing the left side of a massive, steep face and following sharp ridges and complex glacial terrain to the summit plateau. They called it the Diamond Ridge. Because of its difficulty and commitment, this route has only been repeated once, by Sam Johnson and Freddie Wilkinson in 2005.

 

It was in 2018 that Michael and I first came to the heart of this mountain range. Since that first trip, we've been dreaming up our own, more direct route up Mount Hunter. As the area is particularly dangerous, we had to be sure of what we were going to attempt. Until then, we'd never had the essential alignment of weather, terrain conditions and sufficient free time to dare take on this highly exposed face.

 

This year, we were lucky enough to benefit from this alignment. A three-day period of stable weather was forecast, and the cold temperatures of the preceding days would translate into excellent ice conditions on the face. We packed two nights' food, a tent, a sleeping bag and two air mattresses: that should surely be enough to keep three people unfrozen for a few days! We soon found ourselves on the route at the foot of the wall.

 

The first few steps were indicative of what we were to find throughout the climb. Every move proved arduous. A fragile crust hid snow in which we sank up to our knees. There, finding yourself in this situation, when the route is more difficult than expected, has a name: "The Classic Alaskan Sandbag". And there we were.

 

A long traverse brought us to the start of the amazing dihedral that had initially caught our eye when we were observing the base camp wall. While the "ice" turned out to be mostly unprotectable whipped cream, the rock quality was fortunately excellent, although we often had to clear the icy layer to reach it. Four difficult and time-consuming pitches brought us to the end of this first section, at the same time as the last light of day disappeared into the sky. Unfortunately, we still hadn't made it up the steep and difficult terrain.

 

We managed to clear an excellent bivouac platform that could accommodate one person. Being a team of three, we didn't sleep much that night. The welcome arrival of the morning sun filled us with enthusiasm and soon the last two pitches of the dihedral were behind us. We could finally see the top of the mountain, and the huge plumes of snow blowing off the ridges confirmed an inescapable truth: our three-day weather window wouldn't even last two. Looking for the quickest way out, we crossed to the left, in search of the normal route and its supposedly icy exit passage. We never found the ice. We found ourselves on a short, steep pitch of rock, which Michael quickly dispatched and which gave us access to the upper snowy slopes, and finally, to the eponymous ice ridge above the Diamant wall. We were fully committed to this exposed section where the wind was raging. We bundled up as best we could in our clothes and climbed some scary avalanche slopes to the summit, fortunately finding a nice crevasse to set up our Samaya ASSAUT2 ULTRA just as darkness fell.

 

Being inside a tent was a luxury, even with three people in a tent for two! When morning came, we took our time getting ready, knowing that the day ahead would be tough and different from previous climbing days when we'd experienced mixed and steep. In addition to the continuously raging storm, we had eaten most of our food. The day's provisions were one bar and one gel per person... meagre rations indeed! The day passed in a blur of blizzard, snow, falls into crevasses and numerous abseils.

 

In all this chaos, we reached the summit, confirmed by GPS as visibility was restricted to less than 30 metres. The final push back to base camp was quite difficult, our progress slowed by snow and thick fog. From start to finish, Mount Hunter put up a good fight. We were delighted to have had such a memorable experience on the route we had dreamed of for so many years.

 

After three days' rest, we felt ready to go and rub shoulders with higher altitudes again. Back at Camp 3 on Denali, temperatures had warmed considerably and, after a short but ferocious storm, we felt it was the right time to head for the summit. A bit of icy skiing on the "Orient Express" in the middle of a blizzard wasn't exactly the experience we were looking for, so the next day we decided to simply climb the West Buttress to acclimatize. Much to our surprise, the day turned out to be one of the warmest we'd ever experienced, with clouds but absolutely no wind. What a treat! Skiing down to camp via the rescue couloir, we were feeling enthusiastic and wondering what was to come. An unstable weather forecast finally convinced us to turn to another ski objective: this was a mission we could complete with 12 hours of decent visibility.

 

Unfortunately for our energy levels, after just one day's rest, the weather seemed to clear up again for a short while. We decided that this was our chance. After all, this was Alaska and it would have been a shame to miss a good window simply because we were tired! The objective was clear: repeat Andreas Fransson's visionary line on the South Face. Steep, firm and with a significant technical component in the lower half, it seemed to be the pinnacle of great adventure skiing on Denali. Andreas is unfortunately no longer with us, and no one had yet repeated the line. We didn't know exactly what to expect, as Denali is known for its extremely varied conditions every year. So we had to be ready for anything. Two ropes, two ice axes each and ice ski expert Eric Haferman: these assets meant we felt well prepared for anything we might find.

 

Although the skies were clear, the winds were anything but calm and reaching the summit proved a difficult task. After much effort and self-sacrifice, Eric, Michael and I found ourselves once again on North America's highest peak, but this time pointing our skis in a different direction, taking a sharp left turn from Kahiltna Horn and descending the white ice of the upper South Face. The angle gradually decreased and the snow got deeper until we were screaming with joy as we made big turns with boot-deep powder above the summit of "Big Bertha", the monstrous serac lurking halfway down. A big traverse, first on skis, then in crampons, led us to the rocky bands above the lower face, where we got out the ropes and started rappelling. Like Andreas before us, we found the lower mountain all blue ice: disappointing but not surprising! The cold and now very cloudy weather allowed us to abseil down the whole lower face during the day, and in the evening we crossed the rimaye and pointed our skis towards the glacier. We arrived at base camp just after midnight, barely able to realize the magnitude of the afternoon we'd just experienced. After a night's sleep and a hearty breakfast, the sensations began to soak in and we spent the next few days in a satisfying torpor, eating and drinking to our hearts' content and enjoying the company of friends in the thick mountain air.

 

The rest of our season was quiet: we went into town, got soaked by the rain and spent some time skiing on the glacier. The weather never cooperated again for us to attempt any more big climbing objectives, but we returned home incredibly satisfied. Two great routes: one up, one down, and over a month spent with good friends in the coolest mountains in the world. What more could you ask for? Next year we'll be back... and I hear the weather will be perfect!