Big new mixed climb on Mt. Dickey in Alaska’s Ruth Gorge by Tom Livingstone, Gašper Pintar

Tom Livingstone from Great Britain and Gašper Pintar from Slovenia have established an big new mixed climb up the south face of Mt. Dickey (2909m) in the Ruth Gorge of Alaska. The pair, who climbed together for the first time earlier this year in Slovenia's Julian Alps, travelled to North America at the start of April.

Fickle weather characterised the start of their trip and in between shovelling out the tents they attempted two routes on Mt. Dickey, Blood from the Stone (Sean Easton, Ueli Steck 2002) and a direct start to Ruth Gorge Grinder (Jackson Marvell, lan Rousseau 2019), as well as the west face of Peak 7400, but were forced to retreat each time due to poor conditions.

These improved during the second half of the stay on the glacier and the climbers were drawn to a large couloir high on Mt. Dickey's south face. Access appeared to be via "crazy slabs", and the only way of knowing whether they were feasible was to give it a go. They spent a day fixing ropes and then set off on 14 April; climbing alpine style to the left of the Italian route (Fabio Leoni, Mario Manica, Giuseppe Bagatolli, Danny Zampiccoli, Fabrizio Defrancesco, Bruno De Donà, Paolo Borgonovo 1991) the pair spent the next four days forging a weaving, independent line up the huge south face.

Writing on his Instagram handle, Livingstone stated "A subtle traversing line up steep rock led us to the middle of the face, pumpy ice and a cave bivy. Then we zig-zagged higher as snow fell (or rather, rose in the updraft). Many pitches looked improbable, always tricky. A plush snow arête bivy ended day 3, and Pinti smoked his last cigarettes. We then climbed overhanging névé between heavy spindrifts and topped out, happy and joking immaturely about Dickeys…"

The climbers descended by walking down the mountain's west face. Livingstone told planetmountain "there's nothing like a 3 and a half hour cruising walk downhill to end a great adventure, especially as it starts to snow!"

Livingstone and Pintar left just one nut and a carabiner for a pendulum at pitch 4, and a nut and cord for a short rappel at around pitch 10. Unsurprisingly, no bolts were placed and indeed they climbed without a bolt kit. The route has been called The Great Wall and although no grade has yet been put forward, Livingstone indicated that "Gašper said it was the hardest alpine route he’d ever done. It certainly was a hard combination of many different types of climbing, days, and challenges."

 

 

 

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