Mount Kidd (North Peak) attempt
December 21, 2003
Mountain height: 2,958 m (9,702
ft)
Elevation gain: 1,350 m (we
came up about 200 vertical metres short)
Ascent time: 5:05
Descent time: 5:20
One of those days
where you wish you had stayed in bed.
We thought that conditions for the ascent were perfect – not
too much snow, but enough for step-kicking the ascent and glissading the
descent. The first part of the trip was easy, although we had some problems
while getting past the frozen waterfalls. I went too high up on the rockband
and we ended up wasting half an hour getting me over a short, but steep gully.
The scenery throughout was very nice.
Back on track, we started up the main ascent gully. The
grade quickly increased and we encountered more problems. There was lots of
snow, but it had hardened almost to ice and as we gained altitude, step-kicking
became impossible. Without our mountaineering boots and crampons, we resorted
to using our snowshoes, which gave us decent traction on the dangerously steep
and slippery slope. Unfortunately, our ascent was quite slow and on this shortest
day of the year, our turn-around time of 1:30
pm was rapidly approaching. We
were almost to the top of the gully when we fell prey to my carelessness. I
didn’t tighten the strap on one of my snowshoes well enough and all of a sudden
it came off my foot and went careening down the mountain. There was nothing we
could do but watch it go down. It came to a stop about 500 metres below us. I
knew right away that this was going to add significant challenge to our
descent.
Since we were almost to the safety of the rocks above the
gully, we continued up until we had to stop because of the lateness of the day.
We could just see the summit and were about 200 vertical metres from it. After
a short break we started down. The descent was easy until we were back on the
snowy ascent slope. With one snowshoe missing, my descent was an absolute
nightmare. It was painfully slow and physically more brutal than anything I’ve
ever done. With each small step I had to thrust my ice axe deep into the
hardened snow to belay myself. Had the snow been a little softer, it would have
been easy, however, I often had to use all my strength and weight (two things
that I have little of!) just to break the surface. In addition, all my weight
was on my left foot and leg throughout the descent and they began to ache
within 20 minutes. My snowshoeless right foot could get no traction whatsoever
and was useless. I might as well have been descending on one leg.
It got so bad that, with the aid of our short rope, Mark
actually had to belay me down. This was an even slower process and we were
still a long way from the bottom when darkness set in. No problem! I have my
trusty headlamp! Well……maybe not! Apparently, it had accidentally been switched
on during the trip and the battery was dead. We spent the last two hours of the
descent in complete darkness with only a single glo-stick to light the way. I
thought that descending the rock band by the frozen waterfalls in darkness was
going to be next to impossible, but I think sheer adrenaline propelled us down
it in on time. We stumbled back to the car at 7:10 pm, both completely physically and mentally exhausted.
I think we’ll wait for summer before we try this one again!
In the main gully
The frozen waterfall
Great rock scenery on this mountain
Slogging up with one snowshoe
Saying "Hi" to relatives in England, from our highest point of the day