Canadian Maxime Turgeon, climbing with two different partners, has put up two new routes in the Alaska Range, including a major new line on Denali’s south face with Louis-Philippe Ménard. 

On May 12, Turgeon and American Will Mayo started a new line on the south face of 17,400-foot Mt. Foraker. Over two days, they climbed the southwest side of the French Ridge, right of the Infinite Spur, until they intersected the ridge at about 13,000 feet, after 5,000 vertical feet of climbing. They continued up the 1976 French Ridge route and hoped to summit, but the weather seemed to be threatening and eventually they decided to descend their route from around 13,500 feet. 

Back at the base early on the morning of May 14, they encountered climbers Karen McNeill and Sue Nott on their way toward the Infinite Spur. Just after this meeting, the serac that had threatened the lower part of the two men’s route cut loose, obliterating their line. “One more rap or one more rest on the way down, and that would have been it,” Turgeon wrote in an email. 

Returning to Kahiltna base, Turgeon picked up his new partner, Ménard, with whom he had climbed a major new route on Alaska’s Mt. Bradley in 2005. After acclimatizing on the West Buttress of Denali, the two moved to the base of the south face, aiming for a new line between the Japanese Direct (1977) and American Direct (1967) routes. 

Carrying packs of less than 20 pounds each, the two started on May 28 with a full day of rock climbing on good granite. After a rest at 14,000 feet, they continued climbing through the night to another rest at 16,000 feet. That afternoon they joined the line of the American Direct and continued climbing up to 17,500 feet in deteriorating weather. After a rough bivy, they finished the upper face and climbed within 100 feet of the 20,320-foot summit before weather forced them down. Lost in a whiteout, they bivied again at the Football Field at 19,200 feet, and early the next morning they located the West Buttress route and staggered down it. 

The Canadian Direct (“The Real Direct”) has about 8,000 vertical feet of climbing (Alaska 6, 5.9 M6 AI4) and took 58 hours from the bergschrund to the summit ridge. 
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