New Rockies Alpine Route on Mount Tuzo
Quentin Lindfield Roberts writes about his and Alik Berg’s new route on Mount Tuzo above Moraine Lake in the Canadian Rockies called Hiding in Plain Sight M5 AI5.
The name of the route comes from the fact that its right there on one of the most iconic photoscapes of the Rockies. You could probably draw the line on the old $20 bill.
Despite that, the rock in the Valley of 10 Peaks is notoriously bad and the faces are steep and hard. It’s hard to find continuous lines and you’re lucky if they come into condition.
It’s a big gamble going back there, because you never know what you’re going to get. Marc and Luka were really lucky last year, none of their routes are in condition right now.
Alik and I were looking to climb something in preparation for our upcoming trip to Peru. We figure we managed to climb the route on the one good day we had for alpine climbing.
The previous days were too snowy and spindrift would have been gnarly. Yesterday would have been too hot and the start of a warming period that might bring on the big spring avalanche cycle.
The route is exposed to cornice hazard, so that definitely weighed on our minds throughout the day. The cornices are pretty huge up there right now.
Hiding in Plain Sight could potentially form as pure ice all the way to the ground, but we had to climb mixed steps of rock and thin ice.
The lower section of the route was pretty scratchy and thin, the upper ice pillars were wild sneissy alpine ice really high off the ground.
Charging through the hefty winter snowpack to the summit was slow and exhausting. Hopefully we get spring conditions soon, it was full on winter up there.
We climbed and rappelled the route in 18 hours with screws, a small rack and pins. We simul-climbed a lot of it and pitched out the harder sections.
It’s rad up there, I hope it comes in properly some day and someone can climb it as ice to the summit! It was a killer way to spend my birthday.
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