My headlamp beam shows the rocky trail heading down, down, down. I’m tired. The kind of tired where if I wasn’t disciplined I could just sit down and sleep in the middle of the trail. Instead I continue to barely shuffle one foot in front of the other. Down, down, down.

Sunny and I had started the day at a tea house at 10,900’ above Lukla in Nepal. We’re both carrying heavy packs: me, just under 60 pounds. Sunny, just over 70 pounds. We crossed a 15,150’ pass around midday that gave us access to the Hinku Valley, but the pass traverses the mountain side going up and down ridge after ridge. Sunny had gone ahead and told me she would meet me at a tea house at 12,200’, but I’m now at just under 12,000’. Where could she be? Where’s the tea house? Discipline.

Several days later we find ourselves slogging up a different hill. This time we’re above the last tea house and heading to where we’ll make our base camp. Sunny was here three years ago to try this route with a Sherpa friend, but they didn’t really have the gear for it and so they retreated.

This year Sunny and I co-led a group to Everest basecamp and then a climb of 20,305’ Island Peak. We’re feeling reasonably acclimated and rested and after dropping our clients off in Kathmandu we head back in to the Himalaya for round two.

I’m relying on Sunny’s recollections for where to go and where to place our camps. Basecamp turns out to be in a nice spot next to a lake at 15,500’. The next day we move up to camp 1, which requires scrambling up a loose 4th class gully to where we rope up for an easy 5th class pitch. A bit higher is camp 1 below a cliff and on a rocky platform at 17,200’. Speaking for myself, I’m pretty tired from carrying a heavy pack and from the altitude. Regardless, the weather is nice so I set up the tent while Sunny finds water.

Moving to high camp the next day was interesting as we have to traverse under glacial cliffs, and around the side to access the top of the glacier. After roping up we weave our way over and around huge boulders, crevasses and ridges in the snow, finally finding a safe spot to set up camp between several large crevasses at just over 18,000’. We’re far enough out from the cliffs to be protected from all but the most catastrophic avalanches and rockfall.

Above us is the crux of the route. A 1,000’ ramp and couloir system that will take us to the ridge, which is where we will join the normal route. We’re both wiped out though from a week of hard effort so we decide to take a rest day.

The next day we finally get to rope up on some alpine terrain. The ramp is much dryer then when Sunny was here three years ago. It’s mostly rock where three years ago there was ice. In places there’s 4-5 inches of snice (a combination of snow and ice) covering the rock.

I’m relishing climbing up high in the alpine. The weather is nice. There are more cracks and places for gear than I anticipated. And we’re on a new route in the Himalaya. After a rope length I build an anchor with a good piton and nut and bring Sunny up.

I try going straight left and up a corner on the next pitch, but quickly determine that the corner lacks gear, and ice, so I come back towards the belay and climb straight up. The climbing is steeper then the first pitch and is mostly snice over rock, and not much gear. After 50 feet I get in a knifeblade before a steeper section of blocks and ice. Higher I spy a large flake near the top of the ramp. It looks like I can sling it to make an anchor, so I head up and left.

After building an anchor with another pin and a #6 Metolius Ultralight cam I look up. My heart sinks. 50 feet above me is a 40 foot vertical cliff with two narrow ribbons of ice. There’s a crack on the right, but above the crack looms a bunch of microwave size boulders, waiting to continue their downward dance with gravity.

Looking down at my rack, which now consists of no pins, 6 nuts, and 4 cams, I realize that my efforts to lighten our packs for the hike in was probably too aggressive. I’d taken a lot of pieces off as I went from the US to Kathmandu to Lukla to Tangnag. Now I was going to pay the price. Not only did we still have 4 or so pitches to climb to the ridge, we didn’t have enough gear to safely climb this obstacle, or others we might encounter higher in the gully. We wouldn’t even have enough gear for anchors to get down.

At that point it was obvious that the only direction for us was down, so I set the rap anchor up to rappel and with one last look up started down.

Climbing in general, but certainly in the greater ranges of the world, requires a lot of things to come together to be successful. Weather, health, route, right gear, partners - all have to align to reach the summit and get back down safely.

Am I bummed that we didn’t reach the summit of Kusum Kanguru? You bet. But was it a grand and memorable adventure with my wife? Absolutely. Will we be back? Hmm, never say never....

Headed home from high camp. Will we be back? Who knows…

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"I’m telling you, it’s incredible. Warm sunny granite, splitter after splitter, up at 10000ft; no crowds. It’s absolutely incredible." Chris’ words echo through my mind as we’re scrambling along the summit ridge of South Howser Tower looking for the first rap station. There are two or three parties visible on the upper rappels ahead of us, a team of two from Calgary just free soloed past us. Another party of three is about to start the final ridge traverse a few hundred feet behind us. This is Chris’ and my second day on the route and we’re losing daylight; thunderheads are rolling in on the horizon.

Turns out the Bugaboos are a well-kept secret no more: after years of rave reports from the adventurous few who embarked on the long trek to the Bugs, the crowds have finally caught up. Compounded by a very short season, the campground, hut, and classic routes are now frequently at or beyond capacity for those elusive few summer weeks that offer the best chance of sunshine and mild temperatures.

Climbers at the rope-up ledge on the Northeast Ridge of Bugaboo Spire. It's a party!

That’s not to say that the Bugaboos are no longer a worthy objective - aside from the ‘no crowds’ part, everything you’ve ever heard about these granite spires still holds true: the setting is spectacular, the climbing wonderful, the location of Applebee campground exquisite, and the weather fickle. In the last two weeks, Chris and I had so much rain that we were already beginning to pack up - resigned to beating an early retreat - when an updated forecast finally promised two days of stable high pressure and blue skies.

So here we are. It’s the second day of the weather window, our second day on the Beckey-Chouinard; not only are we running out of daylight and good weather... we’re also just about out of calories and water. For the two weeks leading up to this climb, all Chris and I could do is talk about how excited we are to get on the route - after all, if you’re a trad climber the Beckey-Chouinard with its 2200ft of stellar granite needs no introduction. For the last two hours, all we’ve been talking about is how ready we are to be off this mountain. Alas, first there's work to be done: we are looking at 11 rappels, getting over the bergschrund, crossing the Vowell Glacier, descending the Snowpatch-Bugaboo Col, and then traversing the periphery of Crescent Glacier to reach Applebee Camp. I take another look at the clouds brewing in the distance, glance at the setting sun, and take off my pack to dig up my headlamp. It is going to be a long night.

When Chris and I started atop pitch eight this morning, we took our time - we slept in, ate breakfast, and waited for the sun to reach us before putting our climbing shoes back on. With twelve more pitches to the summit, we figured we'd easily be able to finish the route by mid-afternoon and have plenty of daylight for the descent. What we didn't take into account was how slowly we would be climbing at altitude and with heavy packs, or the fact that we were inevitably going to become entangled in the congo line of in-a-day parties catching up to us from below. Case in point: by the time I started out on the first lead of the day, we had already let two parties pass and another one climbed past us while I finished up the pitch. As Chris geared up to lead the crux a few pitches later, we were in the middle of a full blown traffic jam and marooned on the belay ledge for over two hours. Now the sun is setting on us, and we are still miles out from the safety of camp.

Chris leading out on one of the lower pitches of the Beckey-Chouinard, day 1

"Hey, over here - I found it!" Chris waves at me and is already starting to thread our rope through the first rap station. Almost simultaneously, a lone figure appears on the skyline about twenty feet above us and surveys the territory ahead. "You guys know how to get down?" he shouts in our direction as two more climbers appear on the ridge behind him. Chris and I have studied the beta for the descent; the other party has a second 70 meter rope that'll help us get across the bergschrund with a bigger margin of safety. We decide to team up even though we are fully aware that it'll be slow progress getting five people down eleven rappels.

By the time we drop down on the glacier it is well past midnight. The distant thunderclouds have moved in closer; flashes of lightning illuminate the sea of ice and imposing spires all around us. Electrical storms are one of my big fears in the mountains, and yet this night is beautiful - I take comfort in knowing that we are no longer high up on the exposed ridge, and also in the knowledge that there simply is no other option than to keep moving. Nothing to be done than to put one foot in front of the other, to cross the Vowell Glacier until we find the steep col between Bugaboo and Snowpatch Spire, to descend it safely one last time, and then to stubbornly not give in to the desire to sit down until we've dragged our beaten bodies all the way to camp, to safety.

Looking at Snowpatch Spire from Applebee Camp, climbers descending the col by headlamp.

I know what it means to be exhausted. Big walls, 100 Mile ultra marathons, an Ironman - I've put myself through the paces of big days. Now as I take the last steps up to our campsite, 46 hours after starting out, I welcome the familiar feeling of euphoria and gratitude that floods my veins. A new day is starting to break in the east, and I am finally sinking into the warmth of my sleeping bag.

Thinking about your own trip to the Bugaboos? July and August are the best months.
Camp at Applebee - $10 per person per night, first come first serve, water and vault toilets.
The BC Parks website has lots of useful resources, including a map of the park here.
Heads up: The guidebook by Chris Atkinson and Marc Piche is currently out of print
(as of summer 2016). Borrow it or do your research online ahead of time!

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An Attempt on a New Route on Kusum Kanguru

High adventure in the Bugaboos: an epic classic