Adapted from the 2021 trip report by Tanner Josey.
May 2021
As I first began looking at mountains and routes in the Alaska Range, I knew I was looking for a remote experience. I wanted the expedition to feel big, really big. As a climber, when I go to the mountains, I strive to learn, find solitude amidst the giants, and connect with the natural world. These reasons ultimately led my team and me to our objective: Mount Foraker's Sultana Ridge. The access to the Upper Northeast Ridge of Mount Foraker, the Sultana Ridge via the Southeast Ridge of Mount Crosson, is followed by a traverse of the skyline ridge that connects Crosson, a couple of sub-peaks, and Foraker over 2000' of technical snow ridge climbing. Both the SE Ridge of Crosson and NE Ridge of Foraker are graded Alaska Grade III Steep Snow 5000'. Additionally, this route doubles as the standard descent for Mount Foraker, which helped ease the nerves during the planning process because if we had to retreat off the route, we would reverse our tracks. Simple as that...we thought.
Ever since I started climbing, I have dreamed of going to Alaska. However, I had a hard time knowing when I was going to be ready. Over time as I became more confident in the mountains, I felt a change, and I knew it was time to start the process. After locking in a motivated team of three, we applied for permits, and we were ready to make the trip happen. Even though we were psyched, it wasn’t until being awarded the AAC Mountaineering Fellowship Grant that the trip fully came to life. The evening I found out I was a grant recipient, I booked flights for my team and me with the one and only Talkeetna Air Taxi.
My surroundings were bigger and farther away than I imagined.
The scale of the Alaska Range is impossible to comprehend without any prior experience in a greater range, and considering it was my first time, my mind was blown away. The glaciers are deceivingly long, and the routes cover many thousands of feet despite the way it appears. Upon arrival, my brain played tricks on me, but reviewing the guidebook always brought me right back to reality.
Thirty-six hours after arriving at the Kahiltna Glacier Basecamp, my two teammates and I rigged up our sleds and began the first real leg of the climb. We traveled down Heartbreak Hill and across the Kahiltna Glacier, aiming for the base of the SE Ridge of Mount Crosson. We found navigating easier than managing the sleds on the downhill waves of the glacier...I guess we should have practiced glacier travel with the sleds beforehand! Once across, we probed a campsite and set up our advanced basecamp.
The minute we landed on the glacier I began listening and watching the mountains. The initial climb up Crosson tackles 1300’ of steepening snow. In our preparation, we studied past ascents that ascend the South Face of Crosson to access the Southeast Ridge. Upon arrival at our advanced basecamp, it was clear that this was not our access point. The south face was fully melted out, and the icefalls at the base loomed unnerving and active. We determined the access point was now up the East Face to gain the dominant SE Ridge.
With 25 days of food, we had intentionally given ourselves time to wait.
The weather reports we received a week later showed a day of dropping temperatures with an increase in wind followed by a four-day storm system. This was our shot at getting off the Kahiltna Glacier.
When the storm broke in the evening of May 22, four days after it began, the giants showed themselves once again. The wind picked up and lifted the dense clouds off the floor of the Kahiltna Glacier. Within a half hour, Denali, Hunter, Francis, Foraker, Kahiltna Dome, and Crosson all came out of hiding.
Directly out of camp, we navigated crevasses and bergschrunds in our snowshoes. Unfortunately, Milo didn’t have any, so he spent the first 500 feet post-holing at the back of the rope. The climbing eventually became more manageable. Five hundred feet up, we accessed a small ridge that consisted of mostly frozen low-angle loose rock. Ian and I strapped our snowshoes on the outside of our packs and put our crampons on. Our team made quick work of the next couple hundred feet, and it felt as if, for the first time, we were making efficient progress upwards.
As we continued, the ridge gradually faded into the upper snow slopes leading to Camp 1 on Mount Crosson’s Southeast Ridge. The mixture of caffeine powder and adrenaline disguised the fatigue; I was psyched. Milo ran into more post-holing about 1000 feet off the Kahiltna; he retreated back to the belay, and I took off.
An hour after I set off up the slope I was sweating profusely, wet from swimming my way up the ever-steepening snow face, and exhausted from moving left, right, down, and up all just to make some tiny upwards progress. At one point, I had to stop and give myself a moment of meditation. I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. I had to calm down if I was going to be able to get up safely. The sugary facets 4 feet down made for terrible travel and protection. Nothing would hold a fall, and so I never stopped to place anything.
I was 40 meters above my belay on the steep snow face with no pro and about 30 meters below a rock band that guarded access to Camp 1. I thought I could set a belay at the rock band so I pushed on. Nightfall was approaching. Ian and Milo needed to start climbing or the desire to retreat was going to arise. This was make or break for us. I reached the rock band and quickly kicked a flat step, took my pack off, and hooked my Sum’Tec into a crack.
“Off belay” I yelled.
The 70-meter pitch had taken me two hours. I was wet, it was nearing 10 pm, and the day wasn’t close to being done. Milo and Ian followed, reaching me in an hour. Milo eagerly took off on the next pitch with a slim rack of pitons on the rock band.
“Off belay,” from Milo above us.
Relief overcame me. Rocks had whizzed past us at the belay station. The terrain and the rock quality were questionable. Ian tied into the rope and started climbing. Soon I followed with frozen gloves and fingers. There was much more climbing ahead of us. At the belay, I gazed upwards at a surreal steep snow pitch. With a huge smile on my face, I charged upwards. The 60-degree terrain had my heart racing, and, coated with the perfect snow, it made for a moment I could only dream of. I stopped to hammer in a picket 30 meters up and then again at the end of the rope where I took a seat and belayed. Glory! Milo and Ian made quick work of the best steep snow pitch any of us had ever been on. They restacked the rope, and I took off again. The terrain steepened once again until confronting a vertical cornice. At the cornice, I traversed right and then gunned it up and over. As I topped out at Camp 1 and looked behind me the entire skyline had a vibrant pink and purple alpenglow. Euphoria rushed through me. The midnight sky mixed with utter exhaustion made me feel like I was back in a dream...I tossed my pack on the ground and belayed my team to camp.
The bright Alsakan sun greeted us early leaving us with only five hours of sleep. Today we rested, tomorrow we would push for Camp 2.
We traveled quickly in the morning dawn, but eventually, the sun hit the snow. After navigating mixed terrain and steep snow up the first 500 feet of the climb to Camp 2 the angle of the Southeast Ridge of Mount Crosson decreased. We unroped, and simuled to the last flat spot before the steep snow face below the Horn of Camp 2. Here we roped up again. We switched between simul-climbing and proper mountain belays.
Eventually, Ian got to a place where he stopped moving, and called out that it was unsafe to go farther. I stopped climbing, sank my axes into the snow, and belayed Ian back in. Ian reported the snow steepened to 60 or more degrees and it was no longer bonded to the rocks beneath the snow. We decided we were not going to push any higher. We turned around at 9700’, 100 vertical feet below the Horn of Camp 2.
As we rested in a safe spot we saw a small, wet loose avalanche slide right past where we would have been climbing. The SE Ridge of Mount Crosson at 9300’ above Camp 2 looked impeccable. Moderate alpine ice stared at us, but it wasn’t in our cards or our safety margins to push on. The mountains in the Alaska Range are so challenging that it took all of our skill, knowledge, and teamwork to climb to where we did safely, and we still had to go down over 3000’. We battled and pushed as high as we could.
In total, we spent 15 magical days in the mountains. I felt both at peace and overwhelmed in the range. The remoteness, the lack of people, and the complexities all work to create an atmosphere of real adventure. This feeling is special and not readily found.
Upon returning home from the Alaska Range I am motivated to be a better person. My first expedition was a true learning experience. Time spent in wild places has come to mean everything to me and I am excited to take everything I learned and do it all again, ideally with more climbing.
Picking an intimidating route and a mountain with a reputation of seeing very few climbers and even less summiting annually was my main motivation to climb Mount Foraker. Our decisions were made as a team and made with safety in mind. The Llama Squad was out there on our own, and we tried again and again with no success in summiting, yet the expedition was a major success. Mount Foraker’s legacy of defeating and inspiring climbers lives on. I am so incredibly thankful for the time I spent in Mount Foraker's presence.
Thank you to the American Alpine Club for the honor of the Mountaineering Fellowship Grant. Your support means the world to me.