Dispatch from John Kear: I'm pleased to report Michael Cannon and I have summited Huntington in a small weather window and on our second try of the West Face Couloir. From the beginning of the trip the weather was unsettled, and we were delayed a day flying onto the Tokositna. On our first try on the route we started at 5:00 a.m. in fairly good weather but with clouds gathering to the north and west. It didn't look that good, but we thought we could at least check out part of the route.

Basecamp on the Tokositna Glacier with the bottom part of Huntington's West Face in the background. John Kear photo.

We climbed a mellow 40-degree slope above camp to reach the bergschrund under the West Face, and climbed that on 65 to 70-degree ice. That was followed by seven pitches of 50 to 55-degree snow with one pitch of mixed gulley climbing in the middle (Water Ice 3, 75 degrees). Everything was beautifully frozen in place.

Once on the face itself, we climbed a couple of steep pitches with short 85-degree sections, then crossed an arete to get on a different aspect. We climbed five beautiful pitches of 60 and 70-degree ice before the weather worsened, and after about eleven hours of climbing we headed down.

High in the Couloir. John Kear photo.

We took two rest days in funky weather, then started out at midnight to retrace our steps. We regained our high point in only eight hours. It really started to snow and blow a lot, but it never got terrible, and eventually it improved and stopped snowing.

We did two beautiful pitches on 80-degree snow (which then backed off to 45) with great rock protection to the side. It was very beautiful and very exposed because there you are above the steepest part of the Harvard Route - it's like climbing a mixed ledge above Half Dome.

John Kear climbing mixed ground high on Huntington's West Face. Michael Cannon photo.

We found a bivy ledge and stopped, chopped a ledge, brewed up, and dozed for another hour and a half before deciding to try to finish this thing off. The most technical part of the route was next: mixed 85-degree climbing on a rising traverse with tool hooking into cracks and cramponing rock features.

After six more pitches of 60-degree ice, we were near the summit. We climbed through several interesting sections on the way and finally reached a place where we could traverse out onto the immense north face. Perfect 80-degree ice took us to a summit cornice that we could chop through without too much trouble. At the top there was a huge cornice dropping off steeply on all sides. We snapped a couple of pictures and headed down after 5 minutes. It was 23 hours camp to summit, 29 hours round trip, and a wonderful climb from bottom to summit.