Thurs 22 Aug 13: Nugssuaq – That Sinking Feeling E5 5c, 10-11 August 2013
No, this is not a reference to the yacht! There was, fortunately, no sinking on this expedition. The last route we climbed before leaving Greenland, That Sinking Feeling (E5 5c), took a line up an impressive detached flake about 800m in height, a few kilometres along the coast from Tom and Ian’s new route The Incredible Orange. Peter writes:
Tom and Ian had spotted this cool feature, a sort of knife-blade of rock standing out from the cliff, and spotted a possible line on it, following a large corner onto the arête itself. This looked like the only sensible line on the face, so after some discussion it was decided that Ian, Jacob and I should climb it as a three, while Tom graciously bowed out (and packed up most of our base camp on Ikerasak! Cheers Tom). We were all feeling pretty knackered as the end of the expedition drew near: everyone seemed to have a sprained knee or ankle or some kind of minor injury, but we were keen to squeeze one last route in before the yacht had to head back down south. Having been dropped off below the face, we gained a lot of height by scrambling up some scree ledges, depositing us at the base of the final headwall with only 300m of climbing to go before the top. Walking along the ledge at the base of the wall, we noticed with some concern that most of the other corner-lines on the face were totally blind, with no cracks in the back of them – but when we reached our corner it had a fine crack and flakes all the way up. Jacob led the first two pitches up the corner – a little loose to start with but soon improving, to give excellent laybacking and bridging at about E1. He set off to lead the third pitch about 10pm, just as the sun was coming round onto the face, where it remained for about an hour before disappearing behind the northern mountains. This pitch involved climbing the left arête of the corner and then making a spicy traverse rightwards above an overlap, and went at E3 5c.
Jacob in the sun, pitch 3
After this Jacob decided he had done enough of the leading for the time being. The next bit looked easy so I foolishly volunteered… the pitch turned into a minor drama when I had to traverse along a loose ledge, causing massive rope drag, then finish up a sustained 5b crack while getting pumped and running out of gear.
Jacob races Ian up pitch 4
This pitch placed us under the large roof that capped the corner we had been climbing: we had to traverse right under the roof to gain the arête and hopefully easier climbing. The stuff above looked hard, so Ian and I persuaded Jacob to get back on the sharp end. We are very glad we did this, as it proved to be a pretty terrifying pitch! And I was only belaying. Jacob laybacked up some extremely hollow flakes to runners under the roof, and then had to make a huge traverse rightwards with very sketchy gear, in the hope of finding a belay somewhere round the arête… fortunately he got to one just before reaching the end of the rope. Good thing we bought those fulmar ropes off the Irish expedition! As the dawn broke slowly over the Greenland ice-cap, Ian and I followed the pitch, doing some shenanigans to rescue Jacob’s rucksack, which he had left hanging from a runner (after considerable thought – he was worried the runner was so bad the bag might pull it off!). Jacob rated this pitch at E5 5c due to its unprotected nature: it also inspired the route name That Sinking Feeling…
Looking up at the crux pitch and capping roof: serious territory
Ian then led a pitch up a squeeze chimney, which required further sack hauling, and some easier ground led up the arête to its top, where it flattened out and – to our relief – joined onto the mountain behind it. This allowed us to walk off the back rather than having to abseil: Ian (who had actually looked at the map before we started) guided us over the back of the mountain and down a long and beautiful valley to the anchorage to meet the Cosmic Dancer. It was a fine climb to finish the trip with.
Peter Hill
Summit of the flake: everyone pretend to be a Viking!
On the descent we found some antlers
Oxford Greenland Expedition 2013 