Ben and Peter joined me, we sat on our packs and got the stove going, and began to discuss what to do next. Ben wanted to keep going and tag the summit of the Fin, Peter wanted to begin the descent, and I felt pretty ambivalent about the whole thing. As we melted snow, the weather moved in and out.  We hadn’t received a single forecast since we left Talkeetna. In fact, we hadn’t had any communication with the outside world at all.  

By the time we had re-filled all our water bottles and eaten a pack of instant oatmeal, we had gradually came to consensus decision to descend.  I won’t speak for Ben or Peter, but for me, it was ultimately the commitment of the approach that tipped the scales. Even in a full-on storm, it is relatively feasible to rappel a steep alpine face. But to cross miles of avalanche and serac threatened glacier, through heavily crevassed terrain – that was not a risk I would willingly accept. 

Ben took over for the midnight rappels. It was spindrifting at first, then the weather seemed to abate. A stuck rope added an few extra hours to the descent, but we made it back to our cave by eight AM, about twenty six hours after leaving it. We had a quick brew and fell asleep for three hours.  By the time we woke up in the afternoon it was beginning to snow again. We hastily loaded up and sprinted under that serac again to reach our skis. The rest of the descent – skiing roped up with heavy loads in flat light, carrying our skis up and over the cliffband traverse, down climbing the approach couloir, skiing through the lower ice fall – well, it was about what you’d expect. We were worked by the time we reached the glacier below the icefall and it began to snow in earnest. We returned to basecamp at around 11 PM.  By noon the next day, three new feet of snow had fallen. 

Among some Alaska Range devotees, our ascent of the South Face of the Fin rekindled the perennial debate as to whether a summitless climb should be considered complete. I won’t hold any punches here: our original goal was to climb the face to the summit of the Fin, so by our own standards, we failed. Still, when I look back on the experience, I am proud of what we did. When Paul landed three days later to pick us up, I left the Yentna feeling complete.