Had a great trip with Fabio from Italy the first week of May. we flew into the Root Canal glacier with high hopes of tagging a few classic routes. Ham and Eggs was in great shape, but Shaken and others weren't quite that well formed. There were a number of teams in line to climb, but we knew we would be pretty quick, so we got up at 2:30 on our third day and headed to the base.
Fabio is a super solid alpinist with a number of demanding routes in the Alps under his belt. Alaska is a bit of a different ball game, but he quickly made the adjustments and was firing like a veteran in no time.
I started us out on the first 3 pitched to set the tempo, and then turned over the lead to Fabio. He ran up the lower snow pitches and then proceeded to fire out the crux ice lead in fine style.
In no time at all we were at the col, and then the summit. We tracked a fine line up the summit ridge, and were basking in the glow of success in eight hours from our departure. 20 or so rappels later we were sunbathing on the glacier and drinking beer.
We had on more fine day of weather, which we used to go up the Incisor and have a closer look at Shaken. It didn't look that great, but we figure we would investigate anyway. But the weather had other ideas. We got a couple feet of snow the next 2 days. I was glad Fabio got the Full Alaska Adventure. as the clouds cleared we stomped out a runway for the TAT Otter, made the call, and flew out to Talkeetna.
It was an excellent trip with great company! Grazie Fabio!
Cheers, CC
