In July 1989 Deb and I walked into Mt. Robson Provincial Park with the intent of pioneering a ski descent of the N face of Mt. Robson. It had been an idea the year before when I was there alone, but the Berg Glacier dictates a rope and partner. I went to the Great Couloir on the SW exposure with no glaciers that year instead. The Great Couloir had not seen an ascent or descent 'til then. (Another story.) As we were walking in to Berg Lake and the shelters there, I realized that the 35mm. camera with monster telephoto needed a battery. And egoistic me figured my partner should document my awesomeness. My pack was large with alpine gear and all, and I wanted to save my energy for the N face. Deb ran all the way out, drove to town, got a battery, and ran back to discover that this was operator error and we didn't need a battery. Oops. Sorry honey...
After spending the night at Berg Lake we were walking along the shore to head up and met the two rangers on duty. Naturally they were curious about the one set of alpine gear and we chatted. Impressed they were that such a small team were going for this cherry. They'd seen several productions come to try with helicopters, arms lost in rotors, etc. You can take a boat across Berg Lake (recommended) if you have one, go way around via the Robson glacier, or bushwack along the E side of Berg Lake to reach the Berg glacier and up to the Helmet col. Bushwack it was with skis and poles in hand but still limiting progress. When we got out of the woods we made better time initially, but when we got on the glacier it started raining with increasing PI. The snow got wetter and deeper. When it got over knee deep, it was growing dark, and I was tiring, Deb took over the lead to save the prima donna's energy. Little did we know that the rangers had set up a spotting scope in the hut where everyone stored their food and cooked on account of bears. By now it was thundering and lightning and our metal was sparking. The hut erupted with folks crying "Shits hitting the fan and the woman is taking the lead!" apparently. When we were immediately under the N face and it was completely dark, we could see the face producing wet sluffs, very fast wet sluffs in flashes of lightning. I encouraged the leader that they couldn't jump the bergschrunds but crossed my fingers.
We spent that night drying my boot liners and gloves over the stove, hoping for a freeze. Hope was misspent and morning dawned quite warm, overcast, and 95% of the N face back down to blue ice. One narrow unfrozen strip of snow left. Down we went in deep wet snow and flat light. Crevasse bridges were soggy and in the bad light I fell through one. Lunging to the far side I drove my axe shaft two handed into the shitty snow. It held, though hands were 2' below the surface in the saturated pack. I tried to bridge back but made no contact. One look down into darkness energized a supreme effort to pull up and roll sideways into the saturated snow. Skis were on the pack which did not help. It worked. Looking back at Deb, she was braced and ready as one could be in that saturated snow. That's my gal. We crossed the Robson river in spate, and the rangers came over to invite us to a night in their hut. Great night making new friends and hearing outrageous bear stories.
One year later to the day, Angel was born and I hung up my spax (ski pole/ice axe) as told previously. That face has only been descended via skis on two occasions now, two on the first descent and a solo second. It is an incredibly beautiful face, and an uncontrolled fall would not necessitate death. (Some B netting above the bergschrunds would make it a black diamond?) Maybe someone reading this will post up a TR in the future of the 3rd descent?
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