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04/30 - British Bradley 2004
Sam Chinnery with Andy Sharpe (March-April 2004)
The South Face of Mt Bradley (2775m) is very steep granite rising from the Ruth Glacier. So far, the only winter route on it is 'The Gift' put up by Mark Twight in March 1998 - acknowledged as one of the hardest technical routes in Alaska. This duo originally intended to climb a mixed couloir on the face, but on arriving on the glacier they experienced several days of snow, so decided to attempt their fall-back objective instead. This was an amazing 1600m line on the SE Buttress of Mt Dickey (2909m) which, after one unsuccessful attempt followed by a very scary spindrift-pummelled abseil descent, they succeeded in climbing in 3 days (2 bivvies) of very sustained hard ice climbing up to 90°. They called the route 'Snowpatrol' and graded it VI, WI5+.
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