[Zach.jin]

Two friends and I, all TftNA enthusiasts successfully submitted Forbidden via the NW Face last weekend. The training we’ve pursued allowed us to navigate complex terrain and objective hazards feeling strong and in a goods head space.

Full trip report: https://www.summitpost.org/forbidden-via-nw-face-in-late-summer/1042698

Short excerpt: My alarm rang at 5:00am and we were off and walking by 6:30. We went down the glacier, across a few snow bridges and step-across crevasses. Some areas were pretty broken up, but the snow seemed solid. I felt on high-alert, but it seemed all manageable. Somehow, we were at the toe of the NW ridge looking up, and it looked as nasty as it had from afar.

A picket, cord and two-carabiners sat on the snow, a gift from a previous party, and we fashioned a rappel to the bottom of the moat. Despite the broken face and serac above, a direct rappel to the bottom of the moat looked straightforward and we gave it a shot. We set our new picket picket as a deadman, and I rappelled first (with a second picket and Kyle as backup). Once in the moat I found a snow and ice rib on the opposite side to climb out. Andrew repeated, and we had finally found our vertical rock! Kyle removed the back-up picket and went last. On his way down, he chuckled and said, “this is my favorite rappel ever”. I’d felt the same, descending from one world into another, surface to sub-glacian, to improbably get to a place that the night before had seemed impossible.

Topic

[Steve House]

Steve House on August 30, 2019 at 4:21 pm #27596

I first climbed that route in the summer of 1994 training for my second Himalayan expedition (Thalay Sagar NE Ridge, we did not summit). Great, great route through some incredible country. Congrats!