Out and About in the Ruth Gorge


In June of 2009, Lauren and I flew into the Ruth Gorge for some alpine schralping. Lured by the Supertopo guidebook and the tantalizing song of the Cobra Pillar, we camped for three weeks with alpine plums dangling all around us. The irrepressible Nick Storm flew in mid-way through the trip to join us for our adventures. Although we failed to get up the Cobra, we had a great time sussing out some sick alpine lines in the Great Gorge. Here’s our trip report on the Ruth.


The cheapest flight from Salt Lake City to Anchorage went through Phoenix by way of a six-hour layover. The upside was a nice sunset.


On the approach into Anchorage we were able I was able to make out Denali in the distance. I was getting pumped just looking at it from the plane.


Lauren had just come off a stint guiding on Denali and picked me up at the airport at 1 a.m. We drove to the NOLS farm in Palmer for a short bivy and started sorting gear at 6 a.m. We were in Talkeetna by noon and flying into the Ruth Gorge an hour later. Our pilot asked what we were intending to climb. When we mentioned the Cobra he started to fly straight ahead for the Mt. Barrille to give us a look at the route. That son of a bitch didn’t peel away until the last minute, and I ended up peeing myself a little.


He deposited us onto the glacier next to the Mountain House. It’s amazing how quickly one can get to such a remote place. I was stunned…all of a sudden we were there, with 420 pounds of gear, with nothing to do but set up camp and get climbing.


Setting up camp involved the usual…pitching tents, rolling out sleeping bags, and tapping the pony keg.


Somehow we decided that the best idea was to hop on the Cobra right away. This, however, was a bad idea. What were we thinking? Warm up climb anyone? Here’s a photo of Mt. Barrille in good weather, with Denali lurking behind.


Now here’s the thing: I ski like sh#t and am a hazard to myself and anyone roped up with me. What should have been a leisurely 30 minute ski to the base ended up taking 2.5 hours. It really is exhausting falling over and over, and needing to get back up again and again. By the time we got to the base I was knackered. This was not how I imagined my day of alpine glory to start.


But the floundering on skis matched the floundering on the Cobra. We were out-matched, over-tired, under-psyched, and terribly frightened. We tickled the first few pitches of El Cobra for a bit before it showed us it’s jaws…then we got the hell out of there. Our system—second jugs, light haul bag—just wasn’t dialed and we decided to return after a warm up or two. We returned to camp in the rain.


It continued to rain for a few days, with some rather impressive grey-outs. The itch needed to be scratched, though, so we started down valley to scope out a few things despite a fairly massive grey-out. We ended up finding the base of the Stump after looking for it for eight hours. We thought about starting up, but thanks to the thumping we got on the Cobra we were now kinda under-psyched. We wanted good conditions.


So we waited and waited. And waited some more. The good conditions never came, and we started feeling anxious. Goldfinger was looking good again, and it didn’t exactly have a cue of parties at the base, so we roped up and fired.
A couple notable things about the route. First, it’s pretty freaking long--only 11 pitches or so, but most of them are 190-200 feet. It’s also pretty damn sustained. Very impressive. Second, you get really good at climbing a left facing corner. The crux pitch is totally stellar…solid liebacking for a bit, some interesting undercling negotiations, and then out a juggy roof. Not too bad for .11a that’s 1,500 feet off the deck.


The summit was sweet.


We rapped the route with only two significant rope snarls and got back to the skis at 4 a.m. We tried to sleep a little, but it was cold, and wet, and miserable. Finally we slogged back to camp.


A couple days later we decided to set up a bivy with a tent and supplies at the base of the Stump. This was going to be our “Advanced Base Camp”, which is totally rad because I always wanted to have an advanced base camp. The stump camp has some gorgeous tenting, but for some asinine reason we settled for scratching out a platform here. But it put us in proximity to Hut Tower, which we got on next.



Hut Tower was fairly darn easy compared to Goldfinger. There’s a great deal of 5.8-ish terrain that went by quickly. It was a great climb with some spectacular scenery. Here Lauren is on the 9th(?) pitch.


Nick Storm finally came in with all of his good energy and cheap whiskey. The whiskey was completely necessary, because Lauren and I had run out due to all the bad weather. Despite the good advice of a friend for climbing in the Gorge: “Make a list of all the booze you’ll need and then double it”, we had gone too light on the rainy day entertainment.


Nick is an excellent climber and partner, but he really shines when it comes to hauling. He can haul the f*#k out of anything. I once saw Nick haul a VW van a 1000 vertical feet in with only a 2 mm cordalette and a broken pulley…in less than 10 minutes. What’s more, he takes a perverse pleasure in doing it.
So after a little bit more weather, we tried the Cobra again. When we got over to the base of the Cobra, we found these bear tracks. Super cool!



Back on the Cobra. Sh#t, Now this trip report turns a bit more serious. We still went fairly light, but the haul bag was still packed with boots and crampons and ice axes and food and bivy gear and all that sh#t. So hauling wasn’t real easy.


We got to about pitch 4 and I was leading. The rock was crumbly. Gravel really did rain down directly on Nick and Lauren, and I’m sure that the gravel drizzle was disconcerting. The belay was directly under the pitch. On the top of that pitch I grabbed a block…


…and I’m sure you can guess that it was completely loose. I mean, totally loose, and really big. I must have pulled down with about 5 pounds of force and it started to tip. I pushed it back with everything that I could and got it to steady itself back on it’s perch. After five minutes of freaking out and waiting to see if it was going to stay, I gingerly traversed over the top of the block and found a cramped belay.



Nick and Lauren came up. I gave them the most specific directions about what to touch and what to stay away from. I think my freak out influenced them and all of a sudden we realized that we were only 4 pitches up the Cobra and all of us unnerved. I started up the next pitch with a bad feeling in my gut.


The rock got worse. It was sh#t. Crumbly, block, 5.8 bullshit gravel. There was a bit of .10c ow up high that was super great, but mostly the pitch was shit…I was just terrified that I was going to smash my friends. At the top of pitch 5, we all realized that we were going down. It just didn’t feel worth it. I love climbing, and I’m inspired by big objectives, but I’m not a hardman and don’t want to hurt my friends.


So we went back to camp, happy, scared, a little disappointed, but feeling good about our choice. We finished off the pony keg, made sure that the whiskey was gone, and played scrabble. The next day a couple of amazing climber sent the Cobra in 10 hours or something sick, while we got out the sleds and built a kicker.


We waited out another 4 days of storm, then got back on Goldfinger for a day of cragging. We climbed a few pitches, laughed a bunch, and marveled at the great sunshine.


The next day the plane came in and we packed out. We got back to Talkeetna and did the usual pub crawl. We we're in the park at about 3 a.m. doing Kung-Fu on one another and generally acting silly and drunk.