The Kooshdakhaa Project

Sending a Big Alaskan Spire

We all have different projects. Whether that’s to climb some hard route at your grade or a new route of some capacity, it inspires us to continue to develop and push ourselves. I would say my main project for many years has been to just climb rock and ice and transfer that to the mountains. Until recently, I had never had a true project.

I’m not much for projecting routes at the crags or working through the moves on a challenging boulder problem. I’m not sure why. Maybe it’s my attention span or being scared to fail repeatedly. My first real project was Kooshdakhaa Spire in Alaska, which I f irst attempted in 2014.

It pushed me harder mentally than anything I had done before. I have paddled numerous class-five first descents, climbed scary and run-out pitches, been pumped out of my mind and climbed challenging alpine routes. I had never attempted a new route of that scale before. I didn’t expect the mental stress to be so heavy.

On my first attempt, I travelled to Kooshdakhaa with Erik Bonnett. We lived in a small tent for 21 days, 14 of those were at base camp below Kooshdakhaa. During weather windows, we pushed up the wall in alpine-style. Our first attempt ended because of bad weather and the second after climbing at our limit on diff icult terrain for 18 hours, which took its tool. On another day, we climbed the Spire via the North Couloir AI3 M3 for 600 metres in a 12- hour camp-to-camp push. Even though we had climbed to the summit, we bailed twice on our main objective.

We returned in the spring of 2015 and climbed two new routes. We set out early and made quick work of the pitches we knew from the first attempt. As we entered new terrain and continued climbing until nearly midnight before we stopped to re-hydrate and shiver for a few hours. We climbed six more pitches to the top and after honouring our friend Cory Hall on the summit, by spreading some of his ashes, we spent the next few hours making our way back to our camp. After 37 hours on the go, we arrived back in camp happy. We named our route Otter Water Boogie Man V 5.11- A1 600 metres.

We had climbed the project, but it wasn’t over. Our next project was to find another project. We loaded our packs and rafts and trudged into northern B.C. in search of another climbing objective. We found it in the highest point of an unnamed ridge line that reaches 2,270 metres. After another adventure we arrived back in camp after 16 hours on the go. We named our new route Lichening Bolt Buttress IV 5.11- 400 metres. The paddle out was f illed with long glacial rivers, lakes, class-three rapids and two beautiful canyons, that we walked around.

As individuals we all have different projects, whether in the mountains, on rock/ice or at your local crag. These projects are inspiring and motivate us to push and progress to our next level. And when your project is complete, you will find a new one.