Day 15: Serratus summit 

Well we had a pretty early start today. Our goal Serratus – the name is Latin – serratus, “saw-toothed” – and it’s earned: the peak is a jagged, knife edged ridge-like sawblade of a mountain sitting between Tantalus to the north and Lake Lovely Water to the south. Its first ascent was in 1911. We had Barry, Monte and Tim as our guides, and they were exceptional. We put our lives in their hands today. Ropes, carabiners, route selection and just about everything you can imagine. Trust. Total trust. 

Serratus is composed of loose rock, moderate buttresses, with a heavily glaciated north face – which is what we climbed. Standard glacier climbing with ice axe and crampons. The steepest grade in ascent was 52% and let me tell you that is some steep. 

The technique to climb that is to use your front crampon teeth, front pointing, drive the points into the glacier and then with the ice axe in one hand you bury the pick into the glacier and finally your fist on the other is sort of punched in and for balance. Whatever you do, don’t lean back. And then we just go straight up… straight the f up. We completed the super steep ascent and all-of-a-sudden we were on the top!!! Little did we know that the descent was going to be way more challenging. 

We descended the west face with multiple repels on the descent, scrambling – very steep rock and loose rock. very unforgiving and it took a long time to get down. We finally got back on the glacier and had a slow climb back up to the hut. 

Serratus is a technically difficult mountain and for TYL, to a person, we agreed it was our most difficult mountain yet, but summit it we did.

We are back at the hut – 8 hrs later, tired but filled with a tremendous sense of accomplishment. 

And for dinner tonight there’s a small propane BBQ and we are having STEAKS to celebrate!!!! 

Heather