Kennedy Northwest Face Completed

Britons Jon Bracey and Rich Cross have completed the Northwest Face of Mt. Kennedy in the Yukon Territory to the 13,905-foot summit. The face itself had been climbed in 1996 by Jack Tackle and Jack Roberts during an 11-day effort — their second year of trying the wall — but the two Americans stopped where they intersected the North Ridge, well below the summit, after dropping a crampon and in the face of a rising storm. Tackle and Roberts named the wall Arctic Discipline.

Bracey and Cross raced up the 6,000-foot face in just three days, finding ice up to Scottish Grade VI and one mixed pitch of Grade VII. (Roberts and Tackle had reported WI 5+ M6 climbing on their line.) The two Brits suffered two semi-hanging bivouacs in a small tent on the face and reached the summit late on their third day, just a week after leaving the U.K. They descended the back of the peak to the Cathedral Glacier and were picked up by plane two days later, with plenty of time left in their holiday for a week of warmer climbing at Squamish.