New 19-Pitch Climb on Alaska’s Moose’s Tooth

Polish climbers Marcin Tomaszewski and Pawel Haldas have made the first ascent of Cold Wars, a 19-pitch 980-metre mixed route up the south face of Moose’s Tooth in Alaska. It climbs 250 metres of approach slopes and 730 metres up to M5 A3.

“It was colder and harder than Greenland,” said Tomaszewski, who made the first ascent of Fram up the Oqatssut Wall in Greenland last winter with Haldas, a 700-metre VI M5 A3 C2 that you can read more about here.

Few climbers have attempted routes before the summer season in the area, however in 2013 Dani Arnold and the late David Lama made the first ascent of Bird of Prey, a 1,500-metre 6a A2 M7+ 90°. They spent 48 climbing the route, watch highlights from it below. In his American Alpine Journal story, Lama said, “The morning sun is burning on my back, and still it’s brutally cold.”

“And the wall,” said Tomaszewski about Cold Wars, which took 10 days to climb, “was beautiful.” He added the climb had difficult terrain, was technical and time consuming. See more photos below.