First Ascent of Mt. Muir from Harriman Fjord
From the Article in the June 2014 Journal of the Alaskan Mountaineering Club
After a busy winter working with a movie project in Seward, and before an even busier guiding season coming up, Nathan Lane and I decided to try and get a little lost in Prince William Sound and enjoy the calm eye of the storm. We launched my 16 foot inflatable Achilles boat (the HMS Marmot) in Whittier on April 28th while the last rain clouds were working their way West out of the Sound, leaving five blue bird days and ridiculously calm seas.
I had been looking at topo maps and Google Earth of Mt. Muir for a year and daydreaming what Harriman Fjord looked like. We tried to get back into the fjord during our end of the season guide trip for Exit Glacier Guides, but stormy weather pushed us into Blackstone Bay instead. Now with a great weather window and our time freed up, Nate and I left Seward at 5:30 in the evening and were dried up in the Pigot Bay cabin that night pouring over the topo of Muir once again.
The next day we motored into Harriman and were not disappointed with the translation of what proved promising on maps and what unfolded before our eyes. As soon as we got our first look at Muir in person we both immediately felt it was possible. However there were some definite obstacles that would need to be figured out before we got to the summit ridge. The most obvious problem was that the route we were considering lay up off the Colony Glacier and behind a massive ice fall that we enjoyed watch puke ice down its face regularly that week.
We made camp on the southwest shore of Surprise Inlet and commenced our staring and discussing of the route in question. We thought it best to take a quick hike up the Serpentine Glacier and see if we can unlock a way to access a relatively glacier free hillside separating the ice fall just to the north of Penniman Glaciers and the ice fall sweeping down from the most northern tongue of the Serpentine. This 2500 foot snow field looked possible to access by boot pack up a small avy chute at first, then skinning the rest of the way up to what we hoped would be easier travel on the Colony Glacier.
Once we spotted the avy chute after an hour hike up the maze of rocky morainal debris, we headed back to the boat to return to camp. Unfortunately the tide had gone out and where I had thought there was deep enough water to anchor the boat was now a muddy bottom. With the Marmot propped up on a rock we had no choice but to hike, or shoreline boulder, a half mile to our camp and wait for high tide to retrieve the boat. After packing for the climb and eating steaks I donned my dry suit and made a midnight dash back down the boulder course by headlamp and was able to motor the Marmot back to camp.
The next morning we loaded our packs, donned xtra tufs and started the half mile boulder traverse back to the Serpentine. This time we felt the Marmot was better left in camp and take on the extra half mile trudge, but with much heavier packs. At the glacier’s edge we swapped xtra tufs for climbing boots and dropped a bit more weight like extra ice screws and thinning down the med kit. The going was slower with our added weight but the slog up the Serpentine was fairly straight forward. We angled towards the thin avy chute and were at its base in about an hour and a half. To get to skinnable terrain we boot packed up the first 600 feet of snow that was already starting to soften under the early afternoon sun. Once the angle lessened our skis thankfully came off our backs and we slogged the last 2000ish feet, zigzagging up a snow slope eyeing the massive ceracs of the icefall to our left.
We hit the Colony Glacier and were relieved to see a fairly easy and flat ski across it towards the little glacier that flowed from the northeast bowl of the Muir massive. We also got a chance to see the mountain fairly close for the first time and were a little put off by the incredibly huge serac blocks dangling from its north face, where we hoped to find a route. As we skied closer I notice two possible routes up the face. The first would zigzag around, underneath, and on top of the seracs and crevasses littering the face, kinda making an ‘S’ move up the mountain to the summit ridge. The second was a steep, tight couloir that shot up the southern side of the face and made a direct line to the summit. This was obviously the fastest route, but would take us under some fairly imposing hanging seracs and ice formations.
We skied up the final ridge to a good camp spot safely below the face but away from falling debris. Wind gusts had been steadily building to a point where putting up the megamid was a four handed affair. We felt we had put ourselves in a good position, now all we needed to do was see what the couloir would give us and make a run for it. With the alarm set for 4 am I fell asleep with wind gusts shaking icy condensation down on my head.
Not hearing the alarm we managed to get up by 5 am and start gearing up. We left camp just after 6 and found our first crevasse about 100 yards out when Nate punched his leg into a hole. Further up the climbing steepened, and we encountered really firm alpine ice making front pointing and two tooling necessary. The ice felt solid in the morning light and we made good progress as we neared the opening of the couloir.
At first the couloir was no where in site, but then we noticed the rock ridge ran right up next to the first insanely huge serac block of the face, with just a slight opening in between them marking the entrance. The ice in the couloir was even firmer and as the angled steepened we slowed some to make good placements of our tools. The angle stayed pretty consistent at 60 degrees until the last 60 feet when it steepened quite a bit more. All told the couloir was about 800 feet long and we were able to simul climb the first 500 feet or so before setting up a belay.
At the top of the couloir I couldn’t have been more stoked to see the last 500 feet to the summit was basically a walk up. We headed up with the sun already starting to warm to a jacketless temperature. Coming over a little cornice and seeing the last 100 yards to the summit I switched my ice axes in my hands and took two steps. I plunged up to my chest in a crevasse that angled back away from me, forcing me to strain on my tools I had driven into the thankfully hard wind blown snow in front of me. As my legs dangled in space I tried yelling for Nate but he was too far back and out of sight below the cornice to hear me. Figuring he was below me anyway I made a swinging leg kick to porpoise my hips up onto the edge and thankfully was able to squirm my body out of the hole onto solid snow. I marched up a few feet until Nate came up over the ridge and I was able to point out the crevasse and safely belay him around it.
Within minutes we were standing on the summit of Mt. Muir staring at the entire Prince William Sound spread out in front of us. It was 10:30, very light wind and not too cold, probably around high 30s. To the north you could just make out MarkusBaker but the haze kept it somewhat obscured. Looking west we could see the Colony Glacier terminate into Inner Lake George. And looking south and east the Sound presented all its islands and bays, making it look both very explorable and highly complicated.
We didn’t stay on the summit longer than about 20 minutes as the we were worried about the sun warming our overhanging serac friends too much to give us safe passage down the couloir. Careful cramponing down the summit slope we got to the couloir and decided to do a running belay of sorts to get down the steepest sections. Basically I drove a picket and axe into the alpine rime and lowered Nate who would set an anchor and take up rope as I down climbed as quickly and carefully as possible. This worked well and gave us a much needed measure of safety, except we were carrying only a 30 meter rope which made the process somewhat repetitive. You could see water dripping off the ice formations hanging over our heads, and hear chunks of ice falling off to our right.
Finally out of the couloir we angle to our right and further away from the largest ice boulders and continued our simul down climb. Nate was farthest below and fell up to his waist in a crevasse. I plunged my tools and dug my front points into the slope when a ice chunk broke loose above us and caused a slough slide that hit Nate waist level just as he was crawling out of the hole. This was more of a “really? are you kidding me moment” than a huge danger so we laughed as he pulled himself free and we continued down. By 1:30 we were back at the tent gave ourselves our first true congratulatory hug now the more obvious dangers had been surpassed.
The slog downslope was fairly uneventful, just brutal sun baking us to an uncomfortable level. The snow slope was a heavy concrete ski down and the avy chute now had open water running where just a day ago had been covered snow. We trudged down the Serpentine glacier trying work our leg muscles into not rolling over the wrong precarious rock. Finally we hit the shoreline right about high tide which made our bouldering shoreline traverse that much more interesting with our packs.
Back at camp we couldn’t believe the diversity we had just climbed through over the past two days. The beauty of a sea to summit climb is being able to say you completely earned every foot of that mountain. Muir had given us an opportunity to go into an area we had never been, scout a route and start hiking up from the mud of the intertidal zone to the glaciated summit 7,605 feet higher, and then back to zero.