Two trips to Prindle, Sept 2012

My first ever trip to Prindle was a story unto itself, and I'll save it. But to say that it was an experience that would leave me intimidated to go back is putting it pretty lightly.

Mt. Prindle is in the White Mountains, and is only a little over 70 miles from Fairbanks. But the climbing is guarded by a cryptic and difficult approach that requires a four wheel drive truck and a lot of cross-country travel on foot. Mt. Prindle is well-known locally, but when we "go climbing at Prindle" we don't climb Mt. Prindle at all, but instead climb the face in the photo above, which juts out of a shoulder of the actual Mt. Prindle. The face is on the back side of the usual approach to the mountain, and is difficult to see unless you are already in an out-of-the-way place. The face, possibly the most dramatic piece of rock between the Alaska Range and the Brooks Range, doesn't even have a name. If we want to disambiguate the face from Mt. Prindle's summit we call it the "Mt. Prindle rock climbing area", which I find cumbersome and unworthy. So far as I know, very few non-climbers know that this exists, or even that anything like it exists in the White Mountains.

I made a couple of other trips there over the early years of my climbing career, but I was always just along for the ride, and sometimes barely hanging on. It was only once I moved out of Fairbanks that I finally learned how to rock climb.

7 years later after my last trip, I went back to Prindle.

Uneventfully, thank god.

I planned to do at least one trip to Prindle this summer, and hadn't done it. Winter was closing in. But I had taken up running, and realized that I would actually be capable of running the Equinox Marathon this year. Once I realized it was possible to run the marathon, vanity kicked in, and I wanted to post a respectable time. So when Vaughn suggested just three days before the marathon that we squeeze in a Prindle trip, I was conflicted: I knew that the crux of any Prindle trip is just getting out the door, and a golden opportunity was staring me in the face. But the marathon.

"Fine. What the fuck. Sure. Let's go."

I revised my goal time in the marathon up a few hours, threw my shit together, and early the following morning Vaughn and I set out.

Past their prime.

The face comes into view. Mt Prindle's summit, the highest point in the interior, is off to the left.

Big terrain.

One of the valleys feeding American Creek. This is one of the few U-shaped valleys in the interior, as the Prindle area was one of the only glaciated areas in the interior. I find this valley shockingly photogenic, something that will be repeatedly demonstrated in the rest of this blog post. The Lichen Wall is the black wall on the left.

The Lichen Wall.

The route we did is called Godiva, one of the four finishes to Ghiradelli. 11 years ago this route was my first ever multipitch, and it scared the life out of me. I wanted a rematch, and Vaughn graciously let me take the business pitches. I still thought it was scary.

The exposure off the ledge to the left doesn't show in the photos, but it is quite breathtaking.

Looking across the valley.

A view of the exposure off the ledge and across the wall. The turret in view is the Southeast Buttress, aka Piggy Spire. I keep finding myself calling it The Minaret, however, and I don't believe I'm significantly overstating my case when I do.

The white spots are Dall Sheep.

Vaughn arrives at the second to last belay.

Looking across the valley at the Lichen Wall. Winter routes will be established here.

Topping out.

The view from the top.

On the walk off.

I was woken up in the morning by this sheep rustling through my last-night's dinner.

She hung out with us all morning. I thought we were friends, but I tried to pet her and she wasn't having it.

The next day I was too chicken and too worn out from the surprisingly stressful climbing of the previous day to do anything. The whole walk in and out is through lichens like these.

Leaving the face behind.

(for the voyeurs in the blogience, my goal time for the marathon was really sub-4, but I decided even before the Prindle trip came up that that wasn't realistic, and was willing to settle for 4:30. I ended up running a 4:12, which suggests that sub-4 actually was in the cards. I think I can run sub-4 next year, though, which is the only reason I'll ever run a marathon again.)

Winter Prindle

Andy is a small town genius. He has been finding new ways to go climbing around Fairbanks that had been getting overlooked for years. He even discovered and established a dry-tool route on a legit, over-hanging limestone crack at our shitty little top-roping area that, if it were at Haffner Creek, would always have a line. So when Andy made noise about Prindle having winter climbing potential, I listened.

So two weeks after rock climbing at Prindle with Vaughn, I packed the ice gear and hiked back out.

And again, the face comes into view.

Andy and the face.

Looking off to the east.

The base of the face in the morning.

Some nearby tors.

Ghiradelli mostly follows the skyline.

Andy is an optimist, and I am a pessimist. But it is possible for me to take this into account, sit down, think hard, and decide that, with this in mind, I'm right. Andy had designs on big, bold lines up the face. I thought, and still think, that they're impossible. Andy remains an optimist. But I was able to lay out the facts: if we got on some desperate seam and I spent two hours belaying Andy until he bailed off of a nest of tied-off pins, I'd never go back. "Andy lets go, lets find a route that's a slam-dunk, and lets fucking send. And don't you know? I've got something in mind."

Andy, in spite of his optimism, is an agreeable guy, and I got my way.

The first pitch was less than aesthetic. I had designs on the gully that is hidden by the prominent fin on the right. When I was there with Vaughn this gully had water ice in it. By now, of course, it had melted.

Looking across.

What we climbed was mostly just a grassy gully. Andy negotiated some sloping and insecure stuff on the first pitch, then I ran up a second pitch of grass.

Andy scrambled up into that alcove, and attempted to go straight up the corner but was stopped by a slammed-shut seam that wouldn't take any placements. Instead he went left, out of view, and climbed a somewhat insecure, but delightfully sustained and engaging corner. It went at about M4, and was the crux. But there are no pictures because Andy didn't bring a camera.

I led the next pitch. It was short and ended with this grassy flake traverse. Without ice tools it would be desperate, but with tools I was able to excavate a cam placement and bury my tools deep in the dirt for bomber placements. I still whined, of course.

Andy is on top of the ridge between the main wall and Piggy Spire. I stayed on belay to wander in search of rap anchors. I found some on the summit of Piggy Spire.
We assume that our route was new. The lower portion is in the established rappel gully, but it would be a terrible summer climb and assume it hasn't been done. After Andy veered left into the crux climbing, I think that was entirely new terrain since what I climbed would be really tough in summer, and as far as we know no one has brought ice tools out here before. However, we haven't asked around. We didn't name the route, though, as it seems inglorious to suddenly give a route name to an established rap route.

The ridge is a neat feature - it is a thin band of steep-on-both-sides rock connecting Piggy Spire (aka the SE Butt aka The Minaret) to the main wall. I could be wrong, but I don't believe any routes climb from here up the main wall - it looks pretty blank. The feature to the right is called both the East Buttress and the East Tower in the guidebook. The name East Tower makes much more sense, as it isn't really attached to the main feature.

We made the raps with one rope. (since I make a general point on this blog to highlight any disagreements and point out when I'm right, I should point out that Andy and I disagreed about whether or not rapping with one rope was going to end in heartache, and Andy was right: we made it easily.)

We bivied two nights, though we probably could have hiked out after climbing. I'm not sure why Andy always makes this face in photos, but I'm starting to get quite a collection.

I've shown you why I think this feature should be named The Minaret, but now do you see why it was named Piggy Spire?

Looking up the American Creek Valley, again.

The previous night an unusual fog bank rolled over the hills in the distance. Andy and I discussed whether it was the usual snow clouds, or just fog. In the morning the clouds were still there, but by late morning had begun to roll back. I thought that this view settled it: they were snow clouds. But I was mistaken.