Greenland big wall frenzy (Greater ranges climbing)

Tuesday 19 August 2008 10:59AM

Just back from a fantastic five weeks in Greenland. On the advice of Lindsay Griffin we headed to a little visited valley at the end of the Tasermiut fjord on the southern tip of Greenland. We were not disappointed.

We were very lucky to have perfect weather, reportedly rare for this region, having bad weather for the first few days of our trip, while we were ferrying loads to basecamp, and then only three days of bad weather over the entire four weeks of our stay in basecamp.

As a team of seven, we made the most of this good weather, making seven first ascents, all in a lightweight alpine style, and two repeats.

I was climbing with Dan McManus, a young climber from Wales who I met in Edinburgh, and who is one of the best on-sight climbers currently operating in the UK, with many E6 and a handful of E7 on-sights over the past few years. I was a bit apprehensive to be paired with someone so much stronger than me on rock, but having climbed with him before I knew at the very least we would enjoy climbing together. In the event things worked perfectly, with our skills complementing each other very well.

Our “warm up” route was the impressive unclimbed east pillar of Tininnertup II. Previous expeditions to this area had all climbed in big-wall style, hauling heavy bags and sleeping on portaledges, so we were quite nervous setting off with just one light rucksack between the two of us. We suspected this tactic might fail (because the ground looked too hard and time consuming to climb in a fast style), but wanted to try because we knew that big-wall style would have been very unpleasant, as much of the ground on the lower section of the route was very easy angled, making hauling difficult.

As it happened it couldn’t have worked better. We simul-climbed the first few hundred metres of slabs and corners, arriving at a ledge below the steep summit tower in a couple of hours (a guess, neither of us had remembered to bring a watch on the trip!). Above we swung leads up perfect corners, slabs, roofs and cracks, every pitch providing difficulty and superb quality climbing, with mostly good protection and only a short section of bad rock. Pitch five provided the crux – two short boulder problems through small roofs, then a sustained, slopey and bold corner, an impressive lead from Dan. I struggled up with the rucksack before continuing up steep wall climbing with a little boldness to reach the sanctuary of a chimney. Dan then bridged his way up a superb overhanging endurance corner that went on for ever, I had to start climbing in order for him to reach the ledge above to belay! Semi darkness (it never got very dark at this part of the trip, since we were so far north) met us on the ledge and a wonderful realisation – the crack that we had spied from below and joked about climbing (it looked desperate) was in fact easy, and we whooped our way up the very prow of the buttress, with the amazing sweep of the buttress below us. Thinking it was all over, I was a bit distressed to find a nasty offwidth looming above me in the darkest hour of the night. Lots of sweating, swearing and talking to myself later I pulled through onto easier ground, and Dan led through as we simul-climbed to the dramatic summit. Piriton Pillar was about 700m long, had 1 pitch of E5 6a, 2 of E4, 3 of E3 and lots more superb climbing at a slightly easier grade.

After a few days rest, and in continuing perfect weather, we turned our thoughts to the main event. The massive west pillar of the Hermelnbjerg had struck us on the walk in to basecamp, could we climb it free? The only existing route on this wall was a Norwegian big wall route climbing the prominent chimney in the left hand side of the face. Our route focussed on finding a way through a spectacular feature we dubbed “The Eye”, a huge circular section of very steep corners and arêtes a third of the way up. We spent many hours with binoculars exploring the different options before deciding on a way we thought might go. Initially we planned to climb in a lightweight big wall style, hauling a light bag and linking ledges for bivouacs, but after viewing the wall from the side we decided it was worth a go in the same lightweight style in which we had climbed Tininnertup II.

Setting off at dawn on the 25th July we soloed then simul-climbed the first 250m of climbing on perfect slabs, moderate offwidths and fine corners. Dan belayed where he ran out of gear, and I set off up ground that looked similar above, assuming we’d be able to continue simul-climbing. Rapidly I found more technical ground than expected, and a smooth, awkward corner spat me out for a 35 foot fall. Shaken I teetered up the rest of the pitch with another fall, before reaching more reasonable ground just below the ledge forming the lower edge of the eye. Dan led on as I tried to regain my composure, up an amazing fist crack, perfect corners and a curving crack that led to the big question mark on our route; exiting the eye.

The belay was uniquely exposed, and Dan later described setting off on the next pitch as “like leaving a spaceship to make repairs”. Thirty metres above the belay he ground to a halt – straight up was the way we had planned from below, linking to a crucial crack in the slab above, but it looked too bold, left looked like it might go, but would it link to the crack? Feeling it was all a little bit too full-on, we made 11 abseils to the ground.

From the ground it looked like the left way might work, and we returned to the wall two days later well rested, and with enough knowledge of the lower third to climb fast and split the pitches in a way that left Dan fresh and psyched for what we presumed would be the crux of the route. At our previous highpoint Dan bridged, palmed and under-clinged his way left then up, before pulling through the roof on a perfectly positioned finger hold and reaching a belay on rope stretch with a clear view of the key crack. The crack led after 70m to a dead end, and again Dan pulled out all the stops with a superb lead, tip-toeing across vague footholds on an otherwise blank slab with no gear. More superb climbing led to some scrambling and then the hidden crux of the route – a few hundred metres of very bad quality rock. After eighteen hours of climbing I grovelled up easy angled but horrifically loose rock to gain a bivi ledge we had spied from the ground. Here we were able to melt snow and were treated to a fantastic sunset, content with what we had done, and confident that the meat of the route was below us.

The next day dawned cold, and we climbed with numb hands and stiff joints the four pitches that remained to the summit ridge, where we warmed ourselves in the sun before scrambling to the Western Summit of Hermelnbjerg. Four abseils northwards brought us to easy ground and a col. From here the Norwegians had been able to walk down snow back to basecamp, but the glacier had retreated dramatically and we were forced to make a further four abseils before giddy scree running brought us back to camp. “Ramblin’ man” was 1200m long and had a crux of E5 6b, an E5 6a pitch, 3 E4 pitches and a lot more not much easier. Relaxing in basecamp with a view of this route was luxurious – a delicious mix of pride, satisfaction and exhaustion, tempered only by those damn mosquitoes!

We tried a few other routes – an amazing line on the shorter but steeper north – west face of the Hermelnbjerg which proved way too hard (“I could top rope this pitch 20 times and still be unable to lead it” – Dan), then an attempt to climb the main summit of the Hermelnbjerg – the most dramatic summit I’ve ever seen, which ended with terrible rock a few hundred metres below the summit. Our teammates Tony and Reuben later made a repeat of the original 1971 Irish route on this peak, and it was a testament to how successful an expedition it was that I was only a little bit envious!

Pics here.