Serra V in 2004

In 2004 @bud_dugly and I made a trip to Canada’s Waddington Range. We flew into the Sunny Knob camp with White Saddle Air and headed out on the approach to Serra 5 early the next morning. The approach to our high camp involved intricate route finding through crevasse fields, climbing through a 50-75 yard tunnel between couloir walls and the ice filled chute. We crossed 3 bergshrunds that day. Two in the lower couloir (one using the aforementioned tunnel) and one in the upper couloir just below the Asperity/Serra 5 col where we made our high camp. Climbing up out of the bergshrund’s involved near vertical climbing on very soft ice and was a bit dicey. Throughout the approach we dodged rockfall, slushy avalanches and crevasse falls with more than one near miss. In retrospect the actual climb of the Serra 5 summit the following day was somewhat anticlimactic despite the excellent mixed climbing on rock and ice we encountered. To this day due to the variety of challenges, the superb and rarely climbed summit and especially a super fun and capable partner it remains as one of my most memorable trips.

Gear Notes:Ice gear, no cams were used or carried. Set of hexes, nuts.
Approach Notes:whirly

 

The mighty Waddington

We only brought the essentials

Beer cooler at sunny knob camp

Bicuspid at dawn

The Stiletto's

Tom in the 1st bergshrund

Tom above the first set of double bergshrund's

Looking up at the Asperity ice cliffs

Our col camp

Tom on the first lead of the summit tower

Me on the summit 

Yes the ropes were hard to pull

Tom nearing our col camp on descent from summit

Serra 5 in the back of the