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| Pk. 2800+ and Central Water Company Ridge |
BLOG LAG: 14 months
After a long first ascent drought, I finally got up something. With Keane Richards, in June of 2019, we did a sweet little mixed climb in Grand Central Valley. "Central Water Company Ridge" follows the sun-shadow line in the picture above for 1300 ft. of moderate snow and rock, to the summit of Pk.2800+ located at the southern end of Crater Lake.
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| Keane Richards on Company Ridge |
There's something about the camping place at the north side of Crater Lake. Morphogenetic resonance from the tent city that existed there 115 years ago makes it the de facto campsite of Grand Central Valley. People looking for a camp in Grand Central tend to seek out Crater Lake. The 115 year old carriage road which can still be found leading up Grand Central goes straight to Crater Lake, a base of operations in the old days for the Wild Goose Pipeline that boomed, and fizzled, over a century ago in this valley. Not only can ghostly voices of long-departed Teamsters and miners be heard on the wind, but nice planks of old-growth redwood lie strewn about in abundance, and Kitchen Rock provides a windbreak as well as worthy bouldering lines.
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| Keane is visible belaying from the gendarme. In the background is Ooquienuh (Mt. Osborn, Pk. 4714). |
Spring of 2019: early days of the pandemic. Not much tolerance for the risk yet in those days. I lay awake at night preparing for slow death by oxygen starvation. The only safe place to be, it seemed, was outside in the ultraviolet.
A Spring crust had been on for weeks. By early June, a thin crust remained, enough for dogs and sleds. In their first Spring in the Kigs since moving to Nome from Tok the previous Fall, Keane and Sarah Richards, plus intrepid younglings Rosalie and Amelia, plus Sarah's electron cloud of dogs hitched up into a couple of teams, plus myself, trailored our whole kit and caboodle up the Kougarak Road on the weekend and mushed up Grand Central to an awesome family camp in fine weather, highs in the thirties by day, lows in the twenties at night.
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| Company Ridge marked in yellow |
The first night, we figured 5 am was adequate wake-up call. By 8:30 am, after we reached the middle part of the climb, the rocks began to whizz down like a sniper warming up over morning coffee.
"We shoulda left at midnight," I deprecated.
"OK, let's come back at midnight," Keane said commonsensically.
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| Sarah and Amelia about to give the signal to mush. Keane, Rosalie, and I rode the iron dogs. |
We swarmed all over Grand Central for a Saturday. Even if you do leave a trace, such as a snow-machine track, such a trace ceases to exist in the snow after a short time. Keane and I left at midnight on schedule. Rock solid was the snow, with a breeze at ten.
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| Keane, Rosalie, and Amelia bouldering in the nice warm thirty-degree temps at Crater Lake Camp. |
The climb was easy enough to simul-climb the whole way, but steep enough to justify the rope. Mostly we put in pickets, (long dastardly aluminum stakes,) which went into the snow easily, yet felt totally bomber. A few pitches of 45° snow led to the crest of the ridge, where an abyss dropped from our feet off the northwest side. Kicking steps in snow, we climbed past some steepish rocky kigs, banging in an occasional piton or picket. The wind picked up as we neared the top. A crafty tunnel led through a rock buttress, followed by a steep pitch with some good whacks of the ice tools into exposed tundra. The last move was an easy mantel onto a little pointed summit.
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| "Not only can ghostly voices of long-departed Teamsters and miners be heard on the wind, but nice planks of old-growth redwood lie strewn about in abundance, and Kitchen Rock provides a windbreak as well as worthy bouldering lines." |
Somebody climbed the Company Ridge before us. There were bear tracks all over the climb. What I've seen all over the Kigs is that these critters definitely like to play games on snow structures in the early Spring, sliding, jumping, and climbing. Awakening from winter sleep, they step on to the front porch of their lairs, which are located high on the hillsides in skiing and climbing territory, and they mess around on the snow slopes in the nice warm sun before going back in their cave to hit the snooze button just one more time.
Keane and I were forced to search a bit for a viable way down to Crater Lake. We finally started down a gully, but it was a trifle steep, so like some kind of gumby I called for the rope. We would down-simulclimb on pickets.
I went down first, kicking front points in to the steep snow, and stabbing my picks in piolet canard position. The ground was steep enough. If you fell, you'd go whizzing down for quite a ways at a reasonable velocity I looked over to my left and saw tracks, 5 pinpoints in the ice. I could practically see the bear front pointing down next to me, claws forward, my mirror image, with my exact same simian climbing posture on the steep hard snow.
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| Looking southeast from the summit of Pk. 2800+ across Thompson Creek at Pk. 3207, the true high point of False Tigaraha, the peak mistakenly marked as Tigaraha on the map. To surmount that little summit kig there on 3207 requires one rather fearsomely exposed fifth class move. In the background, Pen Tri Cwm can be seen. |
Today, road penetration threatens the Kigluaik Mountains. What if, someday soon, Grand Central is repopulated back to the demographic it showed at the turn of the 20th Century during Wild Goose Pipeline days? A consummation devoutly to be unwished, in my estimation. But if it were so, I have no doubt that Crater Lake would be the locus of the alpine climbing scene. A nice little cirque of miniature peaks surrounds the lake. This mountain wall would lend itself well to endless scrutiny, and feats of derring do, by the legions of climbers, skiers, and boarders who would congregate there at the end of the day, and its features and chutes and walls would become animated with the legends that would accrue. We'll build a hut out of the redwood planks. The bears will probably be driven out by the arrogant humans.
If this comes to pass, let the Central Water Company Ridge be entered as the first excrescence, a line drawn on a mountain. I predict it becomes an alpine classic, for its moderate nature, and ease of access from Tent City at Crater Lake.
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| Pk. 3050+, around the corner from Crater Lake in the West Fork of Grand Central, showing the number one most desirable first descent remaining to be skied in the Kigs: the "Z-Couloir," which is visible snaking down between the two ears. |
