2021 Logan Expedition: A Trip Supported by the John Lauchlan Award

A trip report by 2021 John Lauchlan Award recipients: Ethan Berman, Peter Hoang, Maarten van Haeren, and Alik Berg

Maarten van Haeren, Ethan Berman, Peter Hoang and Alik Berg were one of two teams who received the support of the 2020 John Lauchlan Award. Their proposed trip can be found here, where they hoped to have a exploratory trip to the east end of Mt Logan.

After spending six weeks on the glacier, the team completed several new routes, summitted Mt Logan via the East Ridge, and attempted I-TO on the southeast face of Logan. Below is a summary of their trip, along with route information.

The view from the team’s basecamp on the Hubbard Glacier. Photo: Peter Hoang.

WHITEHORSE QUARANTINE

COVID-19 pandemic introduced several new restrictions and policies in regards to travel – in the case of the Yukon, a mandatory two-week quarantine was required before leaving for Kluane National Park and Reserve. The team was fortunate enough to have options for curbside pickup and deliveries that allowed them to take advantage of the two weeks to prepare for a well-stocked basecamp for their glacial retreat.

At the end of the two-week quarantine, the team was fortunate enough to be in the middle of a high pressure system and were able to fly out almost immediate from Silver City via Icefield Discovery and landed on the Hubbard Glacier, seven kilometers from the base of the East Ridge of Logan.

GLACIAL PARADISE

Upon landing on the Hubbard Glacier, the team quickly set up basecamp before departing on an acclimating mission up Logan’s East Ridge in order to take advantage of good weather. The team made it to the plateau (4900m) before descending. During the acclimating mission, a neighbouring peak, Lucania, saw its first all-female ascent.

The following days after arriving back at basecamp, the team was able to establish three new routes on McArthur and Logbard (described below). The routes range from a mix of technical ice, rock and snow climbing.

Mixed weather arrived and grounded the team for any bigger technical objectives, and it was decided that another mission up the East Ridge was required to maintain acclimated for potential good weather stretch in the future. Peter Hoang opted to stay in basecamp for the second round up the East Ridge. The rest of the team was able to reacclimate and tag the main summit of Mt Logan, returning after a six day round-trip.

Reacclimated, the team then set off for the southeast face of Logan to attempt to repeat or complete a variant of the I-TO route. Deteriorating conditions had the team retreating and returning to the Hubbard Glacier, where they were able to establish one new route on Hubsew Peak (described below) before returning to Whitehorse.

Advanced Basecamp on the Seward Glacier. Photo: Ethan Berman.

NOTES ON ROUTE INFORMATION

The following route summary was provided by Maarten van Haeren. – ed

Joe Josephson’s article in Alpinist 31 proved to be a great resource for both routes on Mount Logan and various surrounding summits. As a small correction, on p36, the “Northeast Aspect” photo of Mount Logan, the route labeled as 32 should be labeled 33 (Orion Spur).

Of course, numerous Canadian and American Alpine Journal articles were instrumental to inform and inspire us of both climbed and unclimbed objectives in the St. Elias range. Most notably, the 1992 CAJ contains two articles (p.12 (Wallis) and p.18 (Serl)) that provide great overviews of remaining first ascent objectives. The 2006 CAJ (p9, Josephson) provides a more modern take on St. Elias climbing.

Despite the useful photographs included in “A Climber’s Guide to the St. Elias Mountains: Volume 1” (Holmes, 2005), several route descriptions are erroneous. Almost as confusing, this book describes both climbed and unclimbed routes, making it at times hard to gauge if a route has actually been climbed. Most relevant to this article, the descriptions of Astrofloyd on McArthur peak are not correct, also placing the route in the wrong location. Photographs attached to this article will hopefully clarify some of this.

Mt. Logbard, “Bogdar” (1000m, AI4 5.3 50°)

FA: Alik Berg, Maarten van Haeren, May 2, 2021

The route name comes from confusion of the name of the peak early on in the trip. Possibly the second ascent of Mt. Logbard. Holmes (2005) describes the East ridge as being climbed for the first ascent of the peak, quoting AAJ 1995 (p. 152). However, the full description of the first ascent of the peak is described in CAJ 1994, p. 64. From this article, it is clear Chilton, Condon, and Prohaska made the first ascent (and partial descent) of Mt. Logbard via the West face, our chosen descent route. This leaves the East ridge of Mt. Logbard unclimbed.

Bogdar crosses a bergshrund around 2550m on the SW face. A short section of snow leads to the one-pitch-wonder aspect of this route. After an aesthetic 60m pitch of WI4, continue up snow slopes to join the knife edge ridge. The rock is sedimentary and the quality on this ridge is poor, making the snow climbing recommended. Eventually join the upper ice face and SW ridge directly to the summit. To descend, follow the North ridge until easy access is gained to the West bowl. We stuck hard skiers right to avoid almost all overhead serac hazard.

McArthur Peak, “Basecamp Buttress” (1000m, AI3 5.8 60°), not to summit

FA: Peter Hoang, Maarten van Haeren, May 5, 2021

Basecamp Buttress follows the eastern-most obvious buttress on the South face of McArthur Peak, directly above the landing site for Icefields Discovery. Holmes (2005) describes this as the “East Buttress” on the South face of McArthur Peak. In dry conditions, rock shoes would be beneficial for this route. The rock is mostly good, apart from the lower two pitches which were low angle and contained loose boulders.

Start at the toe of the buttress, ascending a gully up and left, then back right to the ridge crest (4th class but loose). Follow the ridge crest (4th class rock and snow) over two bumps. From the next col (large rust patch on steep wall), climb a short ramp out right and continue on the ridge crest, from where the rock steepens. Several pitches on or near the crest lead to a short off width, leading to a ledge on the left side of the crest. Climb a tricky traverse over marble-like rock (thin pro) to a short overhang (crux) to join the crest once more. Several gendarmes have to be bypassed (one short rappel) to eventually re-join the main wall. From here, the FA continued in the snow couloir to the right of the buttress. With rock shoes, the upper buttress looked quite enjoyable and would make a good direct finish.. After gaining the highpoint of the ridge (just before joining the E ridge of McArthur Pk.), we descended the broad couloir directly climbers left of the buttress. This required 2 x 60m rappels at the bottom. An alternate (but longer) descent would join the E ridge proper and descend broad snow couloirs directly climbers right of the buttress. Overall, a very enjoyable route which comes recommended, especially with rock shoes (we only had 6000m boots).

McArthur Peak, “Big in Japan” (1500m, AI6 50°), not to summit

FA: Alik Berg, Ethan Berman, May 5, 2021

This route is located on the same buttress as Astrofloyd, but climbs the obvious gully just to it’s right. The gully is mainly steep snow with four 1-2 pitch ice steps, and the third step containing the crux. At the end of the gully a traverse left leads to more moderate snow and ice which gains the east ridge. Climbed to the east ridge in a one day round trip with a direct descent to the Hubbard Glacier from approx 3800m on the east ridge.

Hubsew Peak, Southeast Face (1000m, AI3 60°)

FA: Alik Berg, Maarten van Haeren, May 26, 2021

A rather hidden aspect of Hubsew Peak, it is approached via the next valley South of the standard Mt. Logan East ridge basecamp. Fortunately for us, this line is not quite a ski line, with just enough climbing to keep it interesting. While the rock is granitic, the quality is dubious at best, with mostly thin cracks. We started up the left-most couloir on the face, taking a left-traversing gully around 3000m to join the upper snow bowl. From there, snow and brief icy sections join the East ridge (Chilton-Condon-Prohaska, 1995) shortly before the summit. Descent was made via the blunt S/SSW ridge, until a large open snowfield facing East can be joined back to the bivy. Like the rest of the range, the South face of Hubsew Peak has much potential for ~1000m couloir skiing. The climb was likely the third ascent of Hubsew.

Attempt, Mount Logan, I-TO

We were fortunate enough to attempt to 4000m on our main objective of the trip, the line of I-TO (Okada-Yokoyama, 2010) on the Southeast face of Mt. Logan. While the attempt deserves little attention, we made several worthwhile observations we thought we’d share here. While we initially took a flight over to the Seward glacier, we walked back to our Hubbard basecamp after our aborted attempt, avoiding Water Pass and using a shortcut instead. We propose the name Sneaky Pete’s Pass (2175m, 07 V 0548890 6710720) for this col. Even though it might have been used in the past, we found no references to it within the AAJ or CAJ. This shortcut saves quite a bit of distance versus traveling over Water Pass and provides very reasonable travel between the Hubbard and Seward glaciers. Sneaky Pete’s Pass is steepest on the North side, with about 100m elevation gain over 40° snow. When viewed from the North, the climbers left side provides the most gentle descent on the S side.

The Mount Logan team, from left to right: Ethan Berman, Peter Hoang, Maarten van Haeren, Alik Berg. Photo: Ethan Berman.

The John Lauchlan Memorial Award

The John Lauchlan Memorial Award is a cash and mentorship award designed to assist Canadian climbers.

The award exists to perpetuate the bold and adventurous spirit which John Lauchlan exemplified in his climbing exploits. Specifically, the award strives to promote the development of Canadian climbers through the support of worthy expeditions and mountainous adventures. The JLA encourages climbers from all backgrounds and from any community in Canada to apply.

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