Wagon Wheel quickly became my theme song for this Waddington Range trip. Old Crow Medicine Show added some lyrics to Bob Dylan’s chorus- and “voila!” they got themselves a killer song. It all began rocking out to it in Mikey’s van on the ten hour drive from Squamish to Bluff Lake. Micah Dash and I sat in the back wrestling huge duffles while Kate Rutherford and Mikey Schaefer operated the tunage. I think we requested Wagon Wheel at least four times. It was hot and chaotic: we had too much food, not enough booze, and too little time. Mike King, the helicopter pilot said that he might be able to get us in that night- we had to hurry.
The whole trip began as a whirlwind. Kate and Mikey had just returned from Alaska, Mikey and Micah realized they could use some more bodies in the helicopter to divide the cost, and Kate gave me a call- a week before we were scheduled to fly. I had been grinding away in the Tetons, realizing that this guiding season was going to require extra effort to not burn out. I just said yes.
A little planning, packing and furious traveling later, we all found ourselves out at the tarmac on Mike King’s idyllic ranch. He looked at our pile. Without any expression change at all, he muttered, “It ain’t gonna fit.” Desperation struck the four of us as we maniacally rearranged, omitted, and dumped piles of unnecessary junk back into the van. And soon enough, we were crammed in the human humming bird heading for the mountains.
We got straight to business. Micah and Mikey headed to Combatant to put up a new route while Kate and I went to climb the Direct South Buttress of Tiedemann. We got a late start on the first day and found ourselves excavating a lovely two person bivy eleven pitches up Tiedemann tower. We took an interesting line to the right of the ones previously done- found some great climbing, but found that we still needed to traverse back left in the end because of a steep and blank looking headwall on the final pitches of the face. The next morning, we were climbing up up a steep, wide crack when we heard the boys holler from Combatant. At first, it seemed like a friendly holler. We monkey called back- psyched to have made a connection. A minute later though, it stopped sounding so light-hearted. We thought we could make out a panicked yell for help. Yikes! I lowered Kate, and we began rapping Tiedemann tower.
Luckily Micah was OK. The four hours it took us to get to the boys, our minds could not help but imagine the worst case scenarios. So we were psyched when we finally reached him that he had just hobbled himself. No head injury. Just a sprained ankle on one leg and a broken heel on the other. He took a forty foot lead fall when a rock broke off in his hand. He hit a ledge. He was lucky that Mike could land the helicopter so close to the scene of the accident. Micah insisted that we stay in and finish our trip- so with lots of well-wishing, we let the helicopter sweep him away and back to advanced medical care.
Exhausted, Mikey, Kate, and I headed back to camp that night and were relieved to see some clouds justify our day of rest the next day. To our dismay, the weather continued to deteriorate forcing us into reading in our tents mode. The week was punctuated by a pleasant jaunt to the Plummer Hut to hang out with a couple of adventurous South Africans. Kate and Mikey climbed the classic Claw Peak, I went for a solo mission, we all waited. And waited.
Finally, we got a good weather report. Clouds on Saturday followed by a week of high pressure. We launched. Back up to Tiedemann- but this time in a team of three. Three is a great number in the mountains- you always have someone to talk to, there is always someone who actually wants to lead the pitch, and your nerves don’t have a chance to get so fried. The first ascent party in 1988 consisted of a team of three: Carl Diedrich, Jim Nelson, and Jim Ruch. Their line took us up some marvelous terrain. The rock climbing occasionally had us stumped as we tried to navigate through the sea of stone. It felt endless- after summiting Tiedemann on the first day, we looked beyond and saw two more towers and miles of rock beyond.
We shared a Firstlight tent, the two followers carried 40 liter packs and the leader carried the Mountain Hardwear Scrambler. This style committed us to finding bivy ledges big enough for a tent. It was incredible to see our industrious natures emerge in the fading light when we needed to excavate and construct our four by six ledges. We were proud of our nests. One night, while tiptoeing around the tent on loose boulders behind Tiedemann tower, I started laughing. Mikey and Kate looked at me a little funny, and I just said, hmmm, if only my mom could see me now. Our first bivy was after the first rappel off Tiedemann Tower. Our second and final bivy on the route was at the base of the third tower after a few pitches of mixed ice and rock climbing. The crux of the route landed on Kate’s block. We woke up to a frigid morning and a sluggish sun. She pushed the lead as far as she could before being forced to change into her Mythos. I was nauseated with cold- so I let Mikey convince me that I could climb 5.10 in boots, gloves, and with a thirty-five pound pack. He was right. But it wasn’t fun. Poor Kate- after enduring the cold and confusing leads up to the ridge of the third tower, she found herself at the technical crux of the route. Previous partied aid climbed through this ten meter section of steep, thin climbing. Kate, at first, declared that she was going to do the same. Gently, Mikey and I urged her to just try it. She went for it. And she made it look easy. So, at 5.11 the third tower of Tiedemann is highly free-able.
The silliest moment came right before the top. Mikey and I were having a debate about how many pitches we had left to go. I said, “at least three, but wouldn’t it be funny if it were just over that rise?” He said, “one rope-stretcher at the most.” He took off with the rack and ten seconds later yelled, “off belay!” The summit was a mere 15 feet above us. That was awesome.
The game was not over though. The standard descent down the glacier between Tiedemann and Asperity was too broken to attempt. The only way off of Tiedeman was to traverse the range- up over the summit of Tiedemann, down to the chaos col, up Combatant, down to the Waddington-Combatant col, then back down the Tiedemann Glacier. We began a long journey hoping that Mike would be able to pick us up at the Waddington Combatant col. Late that night, we found ourselves needing to bivy at the Chaos col. We called Mike to let him know our plans and on a whim asked him if he could pick us up there. He said that he was not sure but would try the next morning at eight. We sort of looked at each other stifling that seven year old giggle you get when you get permission to go to the ice cream store.
The next morning was classic. We waited till nine am for the helicopter when we finally could not contain our anxiety and called. Turned out Mike got called out on an emergency and would not be able to come until noon. Then at noon it was another unknown delay- but finally, at two pm to our great joy, he touched down and lifted us up and out of our icy nest. Our eyes widened when under his breath he remarked, “hmmm, I’ve never touched this thing down that high before.”
The tunes continued as we dashed to the Vancouver airport. We were psyched to have been so lucky to climb such a gem, our plans for next year already brewing . . .
