Pringle at Prindle

The last weekend before the marathon I finally got out to Mt. Prindle with Pierre. Prindle is a 5300 ft Peak surrounded by huge open valleys, boggy tundra and the only multi-pitch climbing in the interior. The ridges are dotted with granite tors with names like the Wind Chimes, Chessmen and Stegasourus. But our destination was the 1000+ft granite flanks of a huge protruding granite pluton.

After a one and a half hour drive, a packing accident at the trail head (one dead beer, one wet sleeping bag) , and a 2 1/4 hour fast hike, we settled on a tent site. Uh-oh, its actually getting properly dark at night now! Saturday, we hiked American Creek drainage around to the main wall. This creek once had an alpine glacier and was one of the only glaciated areas in interior Alaska during the last ice age. No glacier now but this huge valley was resplendent in its fall colors, with plenty of wild mountain sheep and blueberries. And one big old grizzly.

A sighting not an encounter. We were up valley, across the creek and up wind. Pierre spotted him about 500 m away as he stood up, sniffing the wind. We stopped. He ambled clumsily to the river. We scanned for cubs. He stalled in the water. I fingered the bear spray and felt the 4 hour hike to the car. Then he bolted across the valley before, thank god, hanging a right and punching up a gear down valley. Certainly much more graceful at speed than doddling. Pretty impressive really.

After that we skirted the valley a little higher up, and turned the corner to the main wall. Right then it started to drizzle. With the tent up, the weather holding, and the gear sorted, we stashed the food and got into it.

Pierre had been out there with Laura and Jason earlier in the summer so I claimed first leading rights. 'Short Stack' 5.8 (200 ft) was a nice long pitch up a steepening ramp to a stack of pancake-like flakes, some more secure than others. The gear wasn't great, and the rock surface a bit skittery with lichen and crumply cracks, but overall a nice long pitch in a spectacular setting. This is probably the entry level pitch at Prindle.

We then rocked around the back and set our sights on 'Klondike' 5.10 (200 ft). This is touted as the only sport climb at Prindle, but with gear advised. In the end, it was 7 bolts, one backed up with a small cam, and 4 other cams in 55 m. Fantastic, varied climbing down low mostly on good-sized holds and then tettering up the tapering dike higher up. From an achor of one bolt and a couple of cams, I wandered upwards and soon spotted a bolt high and left. This lead us into the 'X' routes, the right arm of which we followed to the top. 55 more meters with one bolt, one cam and about 30 m of semi-rotten 5.5 climbing. The only good gear was the belay at the top. After a walkoff and tottering down the talus field in rock shoes, the drizzle had picked up and we called it for dinner. De-hy pasta with tuna, then a couple of Elephant beers and a box of shortbread up under the overhang. Kwal-i-tay.

Well, it rained on and off all night so we bailed at 10am and hiked up the creek to the 4000 ft tors and on up to the summit of Prindle. Great views until the weather rolled in from the west. In the end, it just added another element to the trip and reminded us it really was an alpine environment. By 3:30pm we were back at the car, completely soaked (except for Pierre and his fancy one zillion swiss franc jacket) and into the cookies.

Definitely worth a return trip or two next summer, but I'll try the Faith Creek access. That's supposed to be faster, though less spectacular. Let's see what this 'rest weekend' did for us. Pierre and I, and Lisa and Andy and doing the Marathon tomorrow...