Back from Baffin Island

Big wall free climbing in Baffin Island

September 16 2009,

Sean Villanueva, Stéphane Hanssens, Olivier Favresse and I Just came back from a expedition in Baffin Island. We had an awesome trip! Free Climbing in Baffin is amazing and the potential for free climbing and first ascents seems endless. Our main target was to climb around Mt Asgard, which is one of the craziest looking mountains I have ever seen (two cylindrical towers with super steep and long walls all around).

Besides the climbing, one of the main difficulties out there is the remoteness of the place. Over the course of 45 days, we hiked a full month (about 600km) ferrying loads (3 weeks up / 1 week down) for only two weeks of climbing! It seems ridiculous, but the climbing and the place is so unique that in the end it felt well worth it. At least all along the way up to Mt. Asgard, there was ton’s of incredible boulder fields with perfect soft tundra landing to keep ourselves in shape. Bouldering out there is definitely something to consider.

Expert aid climber soloist, Silvia Vidal from Catalunya, came on the trip to make her logistic as a soloist easier. After a few days of carrying loads to the base of Tirokwa wall (her original objective), she felt not enough connection with the wall to spend all the effort of putting up a new route solo. Instead she decided to do some trekking.
We decided to invite her to come along climbing Mt. Asgard. For us, as free climbers, we found it would be interesting and that we could learn from having an aid climber along. Plus she had a portaledge which was a nice thing since originally we decided to go with one portaledge and two hammocks to be lighter. Now only one of us would have to sleep in a hammock.

Right as we started hiking up the Weasel Valley, many walls appeared. After a few days of hard hiking we couldn’t handle it anymore and had to climb something. We split in two teams and between the hard choices of all the walls around we picked two and went for it.

Sean and Steph made most likely the first ascent of the Northwest Buttress of Tirokwa peak by putting up “Chocolate boomerang”, 700m, 5.11, all free then reached the main summit in a 24 hour push camp to camp. “Chocolate Boomerang” follows a line previously attempted by Australians. The rock is meant to be excellent and the climbing thin with some run out sections.
Meanwhile, my Brother Olivier and I went for a virgin tower detached from Mt odin.
We climbed the most obvious feature of the spire, which is the prow. And put up “Le bic rouge de Odin” in 20 pitches of 5.10 which is likely to be the first ascent of the spire.

With a bit of climbing in, we felt better ferrying loads all the way (60km) to the base of our main Target : Mt Asgard.
After a reconnaissance on two already established aid routes, Inukshuk on the north tower and the Bavarian route on the south tower, we chose to attempt to free climb the Bavarian route.
We found the climbing to be of excellent quality and very sustained with a bunch of pitches in the 5.12/5.13 range. And after a 11 day stay on the wall splitting the lead of the hard pitches between all of us, we almost succeeded in freeing a line.
Because the ice melted since the first ascent in 1996, we found the starting anchor of the route hanging 15 meters above the ground. So now the route has a new pitch in a blank section of rock. After a failed attempt to free climb it ground up, we sent Silvia (our aid expert) with her babies (Copperheads, hooks and other funky tools) to solve what turned out to be “a really nice A4+” in her own words. For us the potential ground fall hanging on copperhead #1 seemed pretty nasty! We had to headpoint that pitch but it went free at 5.12-X or E8. Most of the harder pitches had to be redpointed and a few headpointed in order to not add any bolts.We found the quality of the rock and the climbing to be outstanding on that wall. Most of the pitches were splitter cracks combined with hard face climbing traversing from one crack to another.

In order to free climb we did a bunch of variation from the original line so almost half of the route is new terrain. We called our variation “ The Belgarian” to underline the joint effort of the Bavarians with the Belgians. Although we have to say that the first ascent wasn’t done in best style: many bat hook holes, rivet ladders and a few bolts next to perfect cracks.

On pitch 7, a short section of 1 meter I wasn't able to link with the beginning of the pitch. I did all the moves so there is no doubt that the route goes free. It was just a bit too hard for us, especially after all the hiking. That crux pitch would go probably at a minimum of 5.13+. So instead of freeing everything we had to use a move of aid. We should also mention that some of the other pitches were redpointed after we reached the summit.

After a few days of recovery and jamming with accordion, mandolin, tin whistle, harmonica and drums we set off for the north tower in alpine style.

Sean and Stephane repeated the Porter route in 24 hour of non-stop climbing. They onsighted every pitch except for 3 which they say would go free with a bit of work.

Olivier and I climbed the North-East face of the north tower with we believe a new line following serenity crack (classic Yosemite crack) like splitters. We think the upper part of the climb might share some pitches with a line put up this season by Canadian climbers, Jon Walsh and Chris Brazeau. The quality of the climb was amazing. Both of us climbed it free with no fall and onsight in about 24 hour. The climb is very sustain in the 5.10/5.11 range and the climbing is at times delicate with run outs on faces between cracks.

Overall we had an awesome time climbing in Baffin. The weather was extremely good with comfortable temperatures and almost no precipitations. In the summer, there are no nights in Baffin so it’s great for long alpine pushes. We didn’t have to use any headlamp the whole time we were there! We will definitely have to go back. The future of big wall free climbing is out there.

We would like to thanks our sponsors for their crucial support : The Belgian Alpine club, Black Diamond, Patagonia, Sterling ropes, Milo, Five Ten, Boreal, Petzl, Seeonee, Crux, Julbo, Belclimb.net, Climb.be, UPMM.

Nico

The expedition Blog : www.xpedition.be
Nico’s website : www.nicolasfavresse.com

List of routes climbed :

First ascent of “Le bic rouge d’Odin” 5.10, 800m, unclimbed virgin tower climbed onsight in a push
First ascent of “Chocolate boomerang” 5.11, 700m, Tirokwa wall climbed onsight in a push
“The Belgarian” 5.13 A1, 850m west face of Asgard’s south tower climbed in 11 days, Big wall style. One aid move.
First ascent “Whisky Gonzales” 5.11, 1200m northeast buttress of Asgard’s north Tower, climbed onsight in a push
“Porter route” 5.12 /A4 climbed in a push, north face of Asgard’s north Tower. 3 pitches were not freed.

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