Wilson Adventures II: Suntori Sit Start

The steep gully, hemmed in by walls of featureless limestone, opened up into a small snowfield, but higher up it necked down again. As the beam of my headlamp swept up the nearly vertical chimney, instead of the hoped-for snow bowl, it revealed nothing but blank, bulging rock walls. I'd led us into a dead end.

Traversing to a snow arete bordering the gully on the right, crampons scratching on rock under a thin covering of snow, I looked down into another couloir. It seemed more open than the one I'd been following. Maybe it was the right one? I traversed back into the dead-end gully and pounded in a knifeblade. Adding a stubby screw, I shouted down, "Secure!"

A few minutes later a headlamp appeared below, and soon thereafter Alik himself. After a brief discussion of our options, he tensioned over and down into the other gully. Removing the screw and leaving a 'biner on the piton, I followed, the jury-rigged toprope cutting into the faceted snow of the arete separating the gullies. After pulling the rope and retying in, I continued my lead block. Some hard snow, a step of thick ice, and a vast snow bowl opened above me, more guessed at than seen in the darkness.

***

Mt. Wilson is to Rockies ice climbing what Grotto Mtn is to its rock climbing. You can spend a whole winter season (or several) on its flanks, and still have more ice to dream of. One of the finest routes on the entire south face has to be Suntori: a pencil-straight line leading to the base of the white quartzite towers crowning the summit ridge. It was first climbed in a three-day effort by Cory Balano, Dave Edgar and Dave Marra. Treating it like an alpine route, they took it all the way to the summit ridge and descend the huge avalanche funnel of Lady Wilson's Cleavage back to the road.

The formidable team of Jay Mills and Eamonn Walsh made the second ascent. Not only did they free the mixed crux, but after an early start from the road, they topped out with daylight to spare. I didn't think Alik and I could match their speed. However, I had another plan in mind.

A drop of water falling from one of the bone-white towers on the summit ridge would flow down the discontinuous ice of Suntori, here and there dropping through thin air to splatter on an ice pedestal. It would then percolate through the avalanche slope below the route, before dripping from the lip of the snapped-off dagger of Stairway to Heaven and free-falling for an entire ropelength. Tired now after all the excitement higher up, it would meander down the rolling ice of Midnight Rambler, before coming to rest among the trees broken by the huge avalanches that, once or twice in a winter, roar down the from nearly a vertical mile above.

I'd always thought retracing the drop's path in reverse would be the best way of climbing Suntori: scrambling up Midnight Rambler in the dark; arriving at the base of Stairway to Heaven at first light; above its overhangs, walking straight up to the start of Suntori; and finishing through the quartzite towers, likely once again in the dark. Planning an early start, Alik and I drove up the Icefields Parkway the night before. A warm wind whooshed through the evergreens on the valley bottom. It wasn't quite the high pressure we'd have liked, but conditions seemed good enough to try. Walking a hundred metres into the darkened forest, we spread out our mats and sleeping bags, and settled in for a few hours of restless sleep.

The pencil-straight line of Suntori from the Icefields Parkway. Stairway to Heaven is behind the treetops.

The south face of Mt. Wilson from a couple of kilometres up the road. Stairway to Heaven is the right-hand dagger (the left-hand one is another story, and hopefully the subject of Wilson Adventures III). The ice above Stairway to Heaven is Living in Paradise (and hopefully the subject of Wilson Adventures IV). Suntori is hidden in the gully to its left. Lady Wilson's is the funnel on the far left.

Alik Berg links the first two pitches of Stairway to Heaven. Anything to save time; the days are short in January.

Sporting an outfit to match the azure ice behind, yours truly starts up the top pitch of Stairway to Heaven. Photo: Alik Berg.

Alik Berg walks up the slope above Stairway to Heaven, as flurries swirl in from the west. Nothing to worry about (or so we hope).

The upper south face of Mt. Wilson. Suntori is on the left, the daggers in the middle are unclimbed, and the crux first pitch of Living in Paradise is hidden behind the rock buttress on the right.

Murky weather on the slope between Stairway to Heaven and Suntori.

Anticipating a long haul, we stop at the base of Suntori to rehydrate.

The first pitch looks trivial, but the rotten, detached ice requires some non-trivial gymnastics. Photo: Alik Berg.

On the other hand, the second pitch proves surprisingly straightforward, with good gear and short cruxes. Even the sun puts in an appearance. Photo: Alik Berg.

A few ropelengths higher, Alik Berg starts up what is probably the best pitch of the route. A short icicle leads to a near-vertical ice hose, almost reminiscent of an Alaskan goulotte.

Alik Berg battles brittle ice at the start of the pitch.

A couple of ropelengths higher the headlamps come out. Fortunately it is the last "hard" pitch - unless, that is, you leave the main drainage and go questing up another gully to the left.

After slogging up the snow bowl below the quartzite towers, we pull into a sheltered cave at their base. Photo: Alik Berg.

At this point we've been going for fifteen hours or more. We stop to have some soup and regroup before facing the last few pitches through the towers and the descent. While waiting for the water to boil, Alik Berg amuses himself by levitating an ice tool.

After finishing the soup, we step out of the cave and into the steep gully above. Climbing between bone-white walls, pulling over chockstones, we're not sure if the gully isn't going to dead end in overhanging rock until we see it roll over into the gentle humpback of the summit ridge. Photo: Alik Berg.

We plunge down the other side: downclimbing steep snow around walls of glacial ice, and rappelling here and there when the ground below seems too steep to downclimb. Eventually we reach the low-angled trough of Lady Wilson's Cleavage. After changing batteries in our fading headlamps, we continue: walking, downclimbing, rappelling. Eventually we find ourselves walking in our crampons down the snow-covered Icefields Parkway, almost twenty-four hours after we left it.

Summary: An ascent of the Midnight Rambler-Stairway to Heaven-Suntori linkup on the south face of Mt. Wilson by Alik Berg and Raphael Slawinski, January 7, 2018.

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