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Chockstone Forum - Crag & Route Beta

Crag & Route Beta

Area	Location	Sub Location	Crag	Links
VIC Buffalo	Gorge	North Side	North Wall	[ Gorge Guide ]

Author

Defender of the Faith & Aid Grades


wallwombat

7-Feb-2008
5:02:01 PM

On 7/02/2008 gordoste wrote:
>BTW the first ever solo of a Grade VII climb was recently completed, there
>is a really good trip report on supertopo.com forums from Dave Turner (who
>did it).

This doesn't take into account Charlie Porter's solo first ascent of the North West face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island in 1975. I believe this easily qualifies as a grade VII. It's just that no one had thought of going past grade VI ,at the time. 40 pitches, a month of ferrying gear from the sea to base camp and then a storm forced him to descend a different way and led to a foodless 10 day hike back to base camp.

He a was also responsible for the solo first ascents of New Dawn and Zodiac in Yosemite.

The guy was hard as nails!

Fish Boy

7-Feb-2008
7:47:03 PM

Dave Turner did it alpine style meaning no fixing of ropes etc....

climberman

7-Feb-2008
7:57:41 PM

On 7/02/2008 Fish Boy wrote:
>Dave Turner did it alpine style meaning no fixing of ropes etc....

But did he get trenchfoot ?

Fish Boy

7-Feb-2008
8:11:11 PM

I guess.


wallwombat

7-Feb-2008
8:20:14 PM

Porter's climb in Baffin is not only considered the first grade VII ever soloed. It is considered the first grade VII ever CLIMBED. This was before cams were invented as well.

Great Ascent by Dave Turner , though. He's a bad ass!

gfdonc

8-Feb-2008
11:41:41 AM

Yeah, but what's he done on grit?


nmonteith

8-Feb-2008
11:46:02 AM

On 7/02/2008 wallwombat wrote:
>This doesn't take into account Charlie Porter's solo first ascent of the
> North West face of Mount Asgard on Baffin Island in 1975. I believe this
>easily qualifies as a grade VII. It's just that no one had thought of going
>past grade VI ,at the time. 40 pitches, a month of ferrying gear from the
>sea to base camp and then a storm forced him to descend a different way
>and led to a foodless 10 day hike back to base camp.

I don't want to ruin a good story - but..... I struggle to see how it would take 10 days to hike back to 'base camp'? Where was his base camp??! The valley floor is a half day walk from Asgard, then from there it would be 3 days max to civilization. And that would be carrying heavy loads. The alpine greenery is actually quite a tasty salad as well.


gordoste

8-Feb-2008
11:46:50 AM

On 7/02/2008 wallwombat wrote:
>a month of ferrying gear from the sea to base camp

no wonder his name was Porter. actually I didn't know about that, I was just repeating what others said.

climberman

8-Feb-2008
6:02:30 PM

The pack ice had begun to disintegrate. He got trenchfoot. It was a very epic epic.

“A Tough Act to Follow – Charlie Porter’s Wilderness of Pain: Baffin Island,” Feature (174) p.56 in Climbing Mag.

Wikipedia notes that: Doug Scott, "Mount Asgard", in World Mountaineering (Audrey Selkeld, editor), Bulfinch Press, 1998, ISBN 0-8212-2502-2. says he also did this ten day retreat without food.


nmonteith

8-Feb-2008
6:14:43 PM

There is no pack ice between Asgard and civilization (you just walk along the edge of the fiord). I'm sure he had an epic - i just can't picture exactly how! I guess with trench-foot he just crawled - slowly. I'm surprised in 10 days he didn't bump into a local Inuit somewhere.... or a polar bear.

climberman

8-Feb-2008
6:36:19 PM

On 8/02/2008 nmonteith wrote:
>There is no pack ice between Asgard and civilization (you just walk along
>the edge of the fiord). I'm sure he had an epic - i just can't picture
>exactly how! I guess with trench-foot he just crawled - slowly. I'm surprised
>in 10 days he didn't bump into a local Inuit somewhere.... or a polar bear.

Fair enough......

But it's a legendary epic epic either way.


nmonteith

8-Feb-2008
7:41:52 PM

Reminds of that guy who got lost in Tassie for a month and survived on eating mushrooms. I think the mushrooms might have had something to do with being lost.


wallwombat

10-Feb-2008
9:38:14 PM

On 8/02/2008 nmonteith wrote:

>I don't want to ruin a good story - but..... I struggle to see how it
>would take 10 days to hike back to 'base camp'? Where was his base camp??!
>The valley floor is a half day walk from Asgard, then from there it would
>be 3 days max to civilization. And that would be carrying heavy loads.

I don't know. Maybe he wasn't as fit as you, Neil.

John Middendorf mentions it here

and if you Google "Charlie Porter" and "Baffin Island" or "Mount Asgard" you will find other mentions of it.


Macciza

10-Feb-2008
11:16:40 PM

I think he ended up descending the other side for some reason and had to walk around - maybe thats it.

I want more details on the Mark Synott trip where 3 of them spent about 36 days on the wall sleeping in a
Cliff Cabana - Double fly and hammock underneath - 6 nights up top then 3 in the hammock

There are 34 messages in this topic.