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Baffin Island 1995 Paul Gagner

A few weeks back I asked if you would like to hear more about the exploratory trip Rick Lovelace and I took to the east coast of Baffin Island in 1995. I got a resounding yes, so here goes. Back then, 25 years ago, Sam Ford Fjord was an unknown location that had only been visited by only a few non-Inuit’s. This is an area several hundred miles north of the arctic circle, and extremely remote. Rick and I had seen some photos of massive walls up to 4,000’ tall and decided we had to go. We received a Mugs Stump Award to explore and climb a massive wall. In this photo is the 4,000’ south face of Walker Citadel across a frozen bay. When we first got here we knew we had to climb it.

After flying into the small Inuit settlement, Clyde River, we immediately packed our gear so we could leave the next day. We had well over a hundred miles to go to get up to Sam Ford Fjord and we were packing camping gear, big wall climbing gear, food and fuel for two months, and a shot gun with slugs to ward off polar bears. We traveled via Qamutiks (traditional sleds pulled by a snowmobile). The sleds carry most of the weight in the back so the front can be pushed over watery crevasses like this one to make a “bridge” for us to walk across on. Up here in the Arctic, north of the Arctic Circle, the sea ice freezes as much as 6’ thick.

After 10 frigid hours traveling into Sam Ford Fjord we finally got to see what we came for - huge 4,000 big walls. First ascents everywhere. However our plan was to hike back to civilization after our climb, which meant crossing several miles of frozen ocean to the far side of the fjord. We were worried about the ice though as it seemed to be melting rapidly. First things first though. We set up a camp and decided we would talk with our Inuit guide first thing in the morning to develop a plan “B”. We awoke several hours later to the sound of the snowmobile firing up, and Joshua leaving without a word, and before we could chat with him.

Walking on water. Conrad Anker recommended we bring rubber boots with us, and they were money. After Joshua left we were on our own, hundreds of miles away from any form of civilization. We were broke and unable to afford a sat phone, so we had no way to communicate with the outside world for the next two months. So we went to work. From our camp on the far side of the bay it was a short 1 mile hike across the frozen ocean to the start of our climb on the 4,000 foot buttress in front of us. We were a bit unnerved by how much water was on top of the ice. Good thing we had the boots, but the main question was how long would the ice last. It was critical to our success.

So off to work it was. After arriving at where we set-up our Basecamp we spent a few days getting familiar with the area and using binoculars to piece together a route. Since we were some of the first non-native people to visit this area we weren’t sure what we would encounter. Polar bears? Check - we had a shotgun for protection. Seams that looked like cracks but that we’re not really cracks and therefore unclimbable? Perhaps. And that water on the ice.... how would that impact our post-climb plans? Since there was no time like the present, and after piecing together what looked like a route that would go, we set off climbing on the lower section of Walker Citadel. Since I had the free climbing shoes I got to lead these pitches.

We carried gear and fixed ropes on the lower 1,000 feet of Walker Citadel for a week or so, which meant we would cross the ice daily to and from our camp. Remember, this is the ocean, and therefore subject to tidal action. These two photos are of the same crack. Can you tell which photo is from low tide, and which is from high tide? What really worried us though was how the rising and falling tidal action was accelerating the ice’s breakup right next to the cliff. Our climb started straight out of the ocean, which right now was ice - or at least fast melting and chopped up ice.
Big walls are what I call “blue collar” climbing. They are a ton of work - manual labor. We fixed ropes almost 1,000’ of rope to a big ledge we called Mastadon Terrace (after Mammoth Terrace on El Cap). At that point we spent a week getting all of our food, water, climbing gear, and winter climbing gear up to that ledge. It was hundreds of pounds of gear that needed to be moved. Why water you ask? The next 3,000’ had few if any ledges from what we could see. So nothing to capture snow that we could melt for water. Hard work rewarded us by putting us in position to go up on the upper wall in a single push.
After a week or so of preparation we launched onto the upper wall. We had 10 days food with us stretchable to 14. We had about 30 gallons of water. And of course all of our climbing and winter camping gear. Most of the climbing was aid, but since I had the free shoes I freed several pitches. This was probably the nicest, warmest day on the whole route. I was able to free a long .10+ off-width below this pitch, and then miraculously this pitch connected two cracks with some face climbing, and just enough gear. After this day the weather deteriorated significantly.

At this point we’re about 1,600 feet up a 4,000 wall. The ledge below me is Mastadon Terrace, about 800’ above the ice. It’s taken a lot of blue collar work to get here, and on this lower section we’re having to do upwards of three hauls since we have so much weight in food, water and gear. Remember the water on the ice, and the up and down tidal action? At this point we note that the ice next to the wall is starting to break up, and at this point we’ve only been on the upper wall for 3 days we’d planned for 10-14 days. Since our wall drops right into the ocean we need the ice to escape back to camp.

How cold was it? It was pretty darn western much of the time. While the lead climber was moving, the belayer would stand at the belay for hours on end. All bolts were hand drilled 3/8” x 2 1/2 to 3” which took awhile to drill in the hard granite. Dancing in place took on a new meaning. At this point we had been on the wall for 8 days. Remember we had brought 10 days of food, stretchable to 14. And we were now just barely half way up the wall. What we hadn’t counted on was the wind, or rain/snow mix. We were only able to climb two days in a row once. Otherwise every other day was a storm day. Sometimes we’d have two storm days in a row. And the wind was frequently hurricane force, blowing off the frozen ocean and screaming up the fjord. Damn that was really slowing us down.

Our home for what ultimately became 23 days was a custom, titanium A5 portaledge. We had @bigwalldeuce make us a black rain fly to try and bolt out some of the 24 hours of light one gets in the Arctic. These ledges are 6’ x 4’, so it’s a tight fit sleeping head-to-toe. Especially when you can’t move during 2-3 day long storms. We experienced high winds screaming off the frozen ocean and down the fjords. When the wind was howling it would be like being in a washing machine - the ledge would get lifted and dropped, even with both Rick and I on the ledge.
At this point days had turned into weeks, and we’d been on the upper wall for 16 days. We’d been rationing our 10-14 day food supply for almost a week now. Every day was slow climbing progress or we were hunkered down in our portaledge hoping one of the storms wouldn’t squeegee us off the face. The day before this picture was taken there was a huge wind event that had a severe and detrimental impact on the ice. At this point it pretty much looked like the ice started 20-40’ out from the wall now. How would we get down? That was the topic of countless conversations. Swim for it? Hell no. Maybe we could build a raft with our portaledge and water barrel? Maybe. At this point we were committed to finishing the climb and figured that we would deal with that inevitability when we got there.
Rick Lovelace was my partner for this adventure, and I couldn’t have asked for a better one. Rick and I knew each other casually from around the Yosemite big wall scene, but hadn’t climbed together until about a year before this trip. We climbed a new big wall route together in Zion (Sands of Time), and then a day in Boulder Canyon. This was our third climb together. Having a solid partner is of course absolutely critical for a climb like this. More important than climbing skills, though those are pretty darn important, are social skills. Being calm and calculated in the face of adversity is critical. After all Rick and I went through on this trip I can’t recall a single time when we raised our voices or got frustrated with each other. And the epic hasn’t really started yet....

We’ve now been on the upper wall for 20 days. We’ve stretched our 10-14 day food supply by being on half rations for over a week, so we’re pretty hungry all the time. The good news is that we’re near the top of this 4,000 foot wall. In fact, this photo is the second to last pitch. From our vantage point though it looks like there’s only open water below us. We continue to believe that somehow someway we’ll solve this problem once we get down. How, we’re really not sure, but we’re confident we can figure some way off this cliff. For now though we are just focused on the summit.

The untrodden summit of Walker Citadel after 21 days on the upper wall. We were stoked to be here but worried about what we would find on the descent. We were hungry having been on half rations for about 10 days while expending a lot of energy. We probably spend an hour on top. Built a small cairn. Left a small register. And then started reversing our route. A common climbers saying is the summit is only the halfway point. We would soon find out that it was actually the one third point.

Water, water everywhere. On our 21st day on the upper wall we summited and then rapped back to our portaledge camp. We intended to rappel our route as there was no easier alternative; the anchors were already in, and we would have otherwise needed to haul all of our gear to the top of this quasi 4,000’ spire. We had left a fixed rope on one of the traversing pitches to get down. We reorganized everything at our bivouac so we could begin rappelling the route the next day, figuring it was going to take two days to get down. There was no ice to be seen anywhere near the base of the route, so we started to piece together a plan to try and traverse sideways below Mastodon Terrace to get to dry land further around the bay. Maybe that would work. We went into problem solving mode. What else are you going to do?

It took us a full day to rappel 3,200 feet to Mastodon Terrace, but that was pretty uneventful. We got down right as gale force winds struck. We still had over 800 feet to go to get to our bay. After a short sleep we loaded each of our packs with about 90 pounds worth of gear and started traversing some downward trending ledges. We had to get about a quarter mile over to the side to be able to touch dry land. Each ledge petered out, and a rappel was required to get down another level. Eventually we got to a spot where we were about a hundred feet above the water. I stopped, and took my pack off to scout whether we should take an upper or lower route. Right then a particularly strong gust hit us, lifting my 90 pound pack, and tossing it over the cliff into the ocean. I was incredulous- my pack, with everything in it was now at the bottom of the ocean. I was able to find a quick route down to dry land and the waters edge, and miraculously the wind caused such strong wave action, and my pack didn’t immediately sink, so I was able to wade out and snag my pack. From here it was a several hour walk and scramble around the bay back to our camp - 23 days after we left. There was a lot to dry out, but the epic was just beginning.

As a long time big wall climber I’ve always counseled approaching big walls in small bites. The whole thing can be overwhelming, but if you break it down into consecutive steps it will feel a lot less daunting. If you recall, our plan for our way back to civilization after the climb was to cross several miles of sea ice to the south side of the fjord, then pick up an old hunting trail back to Clyde River, about 80 miles away. We would leave our big wall gear for our outfitters to pick up by boat after the full break up. With the early break up of the sea ice, at least where we were, getting to the start of the hunting trail was now impossible. We’d been talking about this while on the wall as well, but were pretty much focused on how we were going to get off the wall as our first step. So now we concocted a plan to try to escape by gaining several thousand feet above our camp to access an unexplored glacier. From there we would traverse west to the bottom of the main fjord, cross the inlet river, and hike a series of valleys to get back to Clyde River - that would be an approximately 180 mile stroll. We’d been on half rations for two week already, but after a day of eating, drying our gear out, and repacking, we left a note with our wall gear about what we were doing, and started hiking. There’s no time like the present.

After 3,000 of scree we got onto an unknown, unnamed, untrodden glacier. Of course this wasn’t part of out original plan so we had a skinny rope , no glacier rescue gear, a pair of snowshoes each, and one ice axe. No crampons. You may be surprised to hear that there are still unexplored places - blank places on the map. This was one of them. The maps we had were super vague, and since we were so close to the North Pole a compass didn’t work, and this was before GPS navigation devices. We’d get in sections of glacier where it was just white and uniform in all directions. We just trudged onward trying to stay in a straight line. Our packs were monster heavy, but our goal was to get off the glacier on the far side and camp on dry ground, but our two weeks of half rations were catching up to us.
After an exhausting day we made it off the glacier. We were worked. When we left our camp we had packed almost all of the food we had left, which amounted to about 10 days. However, after over two weeks on half rations, and with all of the energy we were expending, we ended up eating two dinners every night, meaning our 10 days of food was only good for 5. We had our shotgun with us, but didn’t see anything to shoot. Besides, all we had beer slugs for polar bear protection, and slugs weren’t really helpful for anything any smaller. We bivied two nights on the tundra, and our progress was slow, maybe 6-8 miles a day.
We hiked for three days, starving and trying to eat enough at the end of each day. The one obstacle we kept coming across were swollen rivers that we had to cross. Those of you that know me know I hate water. And we were making these crossings, one after another, during peak glacial melt. We broke out our skinny rope to use as a hand line and to use to shuttle packs for a few of the crossings. These crossings really slowed us up, and there was one after another. What if we came across one we couldn’t cross? And then there was the main river that drains into Sam Ford Fjord that we would have to cross. We just hoped it would be shallow enough once we got there.

On our third night Rick and I had a serious conversation about what was becoming more evident, our crazy plan to hike 180 miles back to civilization. Here’s the deal though. We had left almost all of our big wall gear back at our camp on the bay, along with a note about what we were doing. What if our Inuit outfitter made it into the bay, picked up our gear, and left thinking we were heading back a different way? We considered this possibility for hours, and decided we’d sleep on it and decide whether to continue on our course, or head back three days the way we came. One thing was clear to us though, and that was if we continued on we’d need to figure out the food thing, as we’d likely run out of food soon, and a week or more before getting back to Clyde River. In the morning we decided the smartest choice was to head back across the tundra, the dicey glacier, and down to our melted out bay.

At this point thing we’re seemingly spinning out of control. We were close to being out of food, while still not getting enough calories. We had 3 days to hike back to who knows what. We didn’t know if all our gear that we had stashed back at our camp would be there or not. And we had to once again cross a nasty glacier with only snowshoes and no safety gear. In these times though you do what you need to do and we sucked it up, and just focused on making it back alive.
After 6 days trying to hike out we arrived back at our camp by the bay. All of the gear we had stashed was there. And our bay was all water. We could see some large chunks of ice floating in the main arm of the fjord, but it looked pretty clear. Surely it would only be a few days before our outfitter would come in to pick up our gear, and us. At this point we had 3, maybe 4 days of meager food rations next. But we were happy to be back, and relieved to find all of our gear intact.
We had 4 bags of Ramen left and a few other remnants of food. But that was okay. We figured we’d get picked up soon. We had a hook and some fishing line and actually caught a super ugly, spiny fish. We threw it back. I guess we weren’t hungry enough yet. Rick found one quail egg in a tuft of grass. We had a feast - Quail Egg Ramen - you should try it!! There was nothing for us to shoot. But we did have a fresh water stream 40 feet from the tent. One afternoon it rained so hard we had to get out and relocate the tent to dry ground. A few days turned into five days, and we were totally out of food. Things seemed pretty melted out, so we speculated endlessly about why no one had come in to pick us up. There wasn’t much to do. It’s amazing how much time is typically killed cooking, eating, and cleaning up. We slept. We talked. There wasn’t much more to do. And by now we had missed our flight home. Why wasn’t anyone coming to look for us?
Endless speculation. We saw little to no ice. We’d missed our flights home. It seemed perfectly reasonable that someone should have come in by now. And I’m sure my parents had called wondering what was going on. After 9 days of no food we were seriously starting to get a bit delirious and lightheaded. When you don’t eat you don’t poop 💩. At least we had water. This photo was taken after not eating anything for 9 days. And having been on half rations for over two weeks. You eventually lose any sense of hunger. We knew we could live for a long time as long as we had fresh water, but we thought we might die.
The stream behind our tent was constantly changing its pitch, and quite often sounded like a boat engine. We were constantly looking out - hopeful. We were definitely feeling lightheaded after 10 days of no food, and 2+ weeks of half rations. We seriously thought we might die here. But there they were. Not an illusion. On our 10th day without food we unzipped the tent door to see a boat with three Inuit hunters. We were ecstatic. We were going to live. These guys were our saviors, and had squeaked around the edge of the ice to get into the fjord to hunt for caribou. They were on their way out, and knowing where we had been dropped off had come in to look for us. Funny thing was, I’d been a vegetarian for the last 7 years, but all they had to eat was caribou stew. Food never tasted so good.
After 2 months in the fjord, 23 days on our big wall first ascent, 6 days of an aborted attempt to hike out, 2+ weeks on half rations, and 10 days without any food we were on our way home. We loaded almost all of our gear into the tiny boat. 5 guys, 2 caribou and a bunch of other gear. Where we had come in via snowmobile and sled we were now heading out on open water. We planned to rendezvous part way back to Clyde River with our outfitter, who later told us that the mouth of the fjord had been choked with ice, which is why he wasn’t able to come in. Funny, the guys that picked us up had been in the fjord for about a week 🤔. Thanks for following along with this journey. It was quite the adventure. I may add one more post to close the story out tomorrow. 🙏🙏.