Just past the northern skyline near the headwaters of the Chilkat River, a six-mile-long section of granite spires juts toward the sky from a bowl shaped, steep walled mountain basin.
Local alpinist Will Wacker named the area Rapa Nui because of its resemblance to the statues at Easter Island after exploring the cirque in 2012.
He wrote an article describing the rock and its climbing potential in the American Alpine Journal, a publication that describes itself as “the most comprehensive worldwide source of information on major new climbs.”
In his skiplane, Haines pilot Drake Olson had flown Wacker and his climbing partner Dave Sundnas to a set of granite towers.
“The obvious line appeared to involve 1,200 (vertical) feet of climbing through cracks, chimneys, and several large roofs,” Wacker wrote. “We agreed it looked like too big of an undertaking, and, instead, we set our sights on the taller south tower, which had a nice-looking, and easier, south-facing buttress. We spent the remainder of our time exploring the cirque. Most routes would involve lots of cleaning, but one could spend years putting up new routes in the area if only the weather would allow.”
Those granite towers piqued the interest of a handful of climbers not only locally, but from around the world.
Californian big-wall climber Tyler Botzon is one of them. Botzon has climbed in South America, Tibet and China. He put up a first ascent, logged in the American Alpine Journal, on a wall in Madagascar.
He knows good rock. After reading Wacker’s article in 2014 he spent thousands of dollars to scout the area with Olson.
“I couldn’t even believe what I was seeing,” Botzon said of his first scouting trip. “It’s like a gold mine for me. When I got home I was looking at all these photos and I was like ‘Oh my god this is really good unnamed, unclimbed, uncharted terrain in Alaska.”
Besides the Mendenhall Towers in Juneau and Devil’s Thumb near Petersburg, Southeast Alaska isn’t known for its big wall climbing opportunities. Southeast Alaska is geologically diverse, but the slow-cooled, igneous, granite big wall climbers love is rare. Or at least most people thought so.
John Svenson has been climbing in the region since 1968. He approached his objectives from the water and had no idea about the granite towers that lie just beyond the skyline.
“This (rock) is out of sight,” Svenson said, speaking both literally and metaphorically. “I’ve been all over the world looking for rock and climbing it; in Patagonia, the Alps, everywhere. If I’d have known this was here I wouldn’t have spent thousands of dollars going other places.”
Botzon is obsessed with the creative aspect of first ascent climbing. He doesn’t get paid to climb. For the better part of a decade he’s commercially fished in Southeast and the Bering Sea to pay for his passion. He’s spent several thousand dollars scouting the mountains around Haines and Skagway looking for granite walls. He’s lived out of his truck, equipped with a camper shell to provide mobility and avoid paying rent.
“I fell in love with first ascending about five years ago because it’s the perfect blend of creativity and bravery,” Botzon said. “You’re creating something you see inside your mind in a very extreme, austere environment and it just commands your focus. It’s art and it’s adventure.”
Botzon teamed up with Wacker and two other big wall climbers last summer. During a nine-day expedition, they spent two 18-hour days climbing the first ascent of the central tower of Rapa Nui, a route they named “Northern Belle,” which they logged in the American Alpine Journal.
“Over several days we worked through mostly marginal weather, pushing our high point up through immaculate, steep, white granite,” Botzon wrote. “We deployed a capsule-style tactic for the first two thirds of the route. We’d work the pitches free during the warm hours of the day, establish a high point by evening, then rappel down to our skis and ride back to base camp at night.”
The team spent six days establishing the route. They cleaned a little loose rock off the wall and drilled bolts with belays. The climb validated Botzon’s hope, not only for that rock formation, but for the wider region as a new mecca for unclimbed terrain, ripe for first ascents.
“That trip was hugely formative because it confirmed that not only was the rock stable but it was the highest quality you could ever ask for,” Botzon said. “It changed from very good unclimbed terrain to extremely world-class unclimbed terrain and there’s a huge difference.”
Climbing these types of first ascents in Alaska is different than almost everywhere else, Botzon said. Alpinists might have to wait weeks in the field for a weather window and hope for several days of calm.
“On a big wall you’re extremely exposed,” Botzon said. “There’s thousands and thousands of feet of air all the way around you and you’re in a vertical realm. You can maybe get a skinny little ledge. If a huge storm comes in and you’re on a wall, there’s a good chance you’re going to die.”
“(Botzon) and Will (Wacker) are a climbing machine,” Svenson said. “They’re glacier climbing, bushwhacking animals.”
Wacker’s skill navigating alpine and glacial terrain mixed with Botzon’s knowledge of technical, big wall climbing creates the necessary union to operate in this cold, unpredictable and unforgiving landscape where they expect to fail half the time.
“You end up waiting a lot and you’re just stir crazy as all hell and you’re just gunning to get something done,” Wacker said. “It’s a weird feeling when something doesn’t work out. It doesn’t give a rat’s a** about your intentions or your ego or what you want to do. It’s going to do what it wants. If you’re not in tune with that then you’re going to get spanked. You might get killed too.”
Wacker and Botzon attempted another first ascent this summer in a different zone Wacker named Grand Central. They failed. A week-long storm iced over the route they planned and snow accumulated fast. The weather improved and they moved across the glacier to try a different route when Wacker triggered an avalanche. Wind blew a lot of snow around during their trip and Wacker said they were traversing a lot of hard pack.
“There was a crack coming off my skis where I was skinning across,” Wacker said. “I was not really liking the spot but was almost around the corner and I just went for it and it just settled and pulled out below me.”
“It was the closest I’d ever seen someone to dying,” Botzon said of the avalanche that came down just below Wacker.
Although they had enough food to stay out for a month, Botzon was ready to call it after the avalanche and poor weather conditions.
Wacker is familiar with the Grand Central region. He’d explored the areas before he met Botzon. Wacker topped out on 12 peaks in the Grand Central area during four trips since 2004. He never wrote anything up in the American Alpine Journal because he didn’t want to attract attention to the area. There were still a lot of peaks to explore and climb, Wacker said. When he returned home from a climbing trip he opened up an outdoor gear catalog.
“I came back from that trip and I opened a Patagonia catalog and there was that summit that we just climbed and was like holy s**t somebody got up it before us,” Wacker said.
It turns out the climbers who took the photo didn’t summit any of the peaks. They explored the same zone in 2004, wrote it up in the American Alpine Journal and named it “Greyskull Valley,” although they never topped out on a peak.
Last summer a group of sponsored climbers also flew into the Rapa Nui zone to put up their own first ascents. It’s a taboo subject for Botzon and he didn’t want to comment too much on what will likely be an influx of interest from climbers around the world to the region.
Local climber Kevin Forster went up with a sponsored team last year to climb a line on Rapa Nui, but Wacker, Botzon and their team climbed and established the Northern Belle route three weeks before.
This past summer in Grand Central, Wacker and Botzon found some rappel anchors from other climbers. Through word of mouth and the write-ups in the American Alpine Journal, the larger climbing community has become aware and excited about the region, Botzon said.
Botzon believes more sponsored climbers, and their accompanying photographers and videographers, who get paid to market outdoor equipment will soon move in.
“I know that because I grew up climbing in Yosemite and I’m deeply connected with a lot of the climbing community so it’s the talk of the town you might say down south,” Botzon said. “I’m not trying to be greedy over the unclimbed lines here but I’ve put a ton of effort into scouting,” Botzon said. “For me this adventure is deeply personal. That’s the difference between a lot of people who are going to come out here in the next wave of time. The cat’s out of the bag. We’re entering a new stage of climbing here.”
Svenson has followed Botzon’s scouts and climbs. He said he wants locals to explore the area first, before more professionally sponsored teams move in.
“That’s why (Botzon’s) crazed,” Svenson said. “You can see it in his eyes. He’s gotta get in there and get these things done. When the word gets out I bet you’ll have two or three teams a year in here going in.”
It’s a fear Wacker shares as well. Like Botzon, he’s paid for all his explorations and expeditions out of pocket. Wacker almost regretted writing his original 2012 article on Rapa Nui.
“I’m greedy. Climbers are really weird about their objectives,” Wacker said. “It gets hyped up really, really fast and all of a sudden you have these groups and there’s people with a lot of money and a lot of backing.”
But Wacker also thinks the rugged nature of the region and its remoteness might protect it. Most big wall climbers don’t have the experience or desire to endure the conditions necessary to climb in the region.
“It’s yet to be proven. I thought a couple of our old climbing partners would be jumping all over to go out with us (this summer) but they weren’t into it,” Wacker said.
“The pioneering is happening right now,” Svenson said. “In five years the rush will be on. It will be in all the alpine journals. The word will be out.”
Olson, the pilot who’s been a partner in these expeditions for years, said he’s received a few emails about chartering flights into the region.
“I’ve had a few contacts and they’re clueless in the way they approach it,” Olson said. “They just want to know how much it costs to get there. You can’t approach it like that. They don’t know about working with an aircraft and they don’t know about weather. They don’t know about Southeast Alaska. Everybody’s gotta be flexible as hell.”
Forster is skeptical about Haines drawing a crowd of climbers.
“It’s curious to think, will Haines ever becoming a big climbing destination,” Forster said. “I don’t think it ever will. The access makes it difficult. On the other hand, that very thing that it is hard to get to, I think, is a draw to certain people and because of the fact that it has been written up a few times.”
Wacker has let go of trying to protect the area from the outside. That feeling of letting go is what he loves so much about the terrain he’s ascended and explored for the better part of two decades, the bulk of which he’s never written about or made public.
“If I top out on something I feel like it let me go,” Wacker said. “It’s not like I got something huge done. It let me do it. It’s more of an appreciation I guess. That’s why I don’t like blowing things up, honestly, because it’s kind of disrespectful.”
Wacker said there are more zones in the region with world-class granite. He’s keeping them to himself.
