29/01/2010Brits Gear Up for Arctic Yosemite

Mike 'Twid'Turner, Stu McAleese and Mark Thomas are readying themselves to take on one of the world's great unclimbed walls.

In May, the trio will travel to the Stewart Valley, home to some of the most impressive and untouched challenges left to the big wall climber. The trio have their eyes on two potential objectives among the Sail Peaks and will decide which one to go for when they get there. If they get to the top of either it'll also be the first ascent of that mountain.

Talking about the expedition, Stu McAleese said: "New routes in this remote area are rare. Without any exaggeration, the scale and difficulty of this undertaking makes it a big deal."

Sail Peaks is a range of jagged mountains with vertiginous granite faces over a 1000 metres high near the Sam Ford Fjord Inlet, off the north-east coast of Baffin Island. When photographer Gordon Wiltsie visited the frozen fjord in 1998 to document a new route on Great Sail Peak for National Geographic, he said: "It was like discovering an Arctic Yosemite Valley."

Proposed_Lines_Baffin The attempt will take place between the 2nd and 30th May, while the waters that the sea-cliffs rise above are still capped by ice. Getting to the base of the routes will involve at least a two day skidoo journey from Clyde River (pop. approx 250) with help from the Inuit outfitters. It is likely to be very cold even though it will be Spring, since even in July when the ice breaks up, daytime highs of only 10-12 °C can be expected.

Twid has some previous experience of climbing here after making the first ascent of The Endless Day (VI A3+) on the Citadel in 1999, as part of only the second team to ever climb in this area.

Comvergent, a technical provider for the telecoms industry, is the expeditions main sponsor and DMM is the equipment sponsor. All three climbers are British Mountain Guides. Twid and Stu are part of the DMM climbing team and Stu is also sponsored by Mountain Equipment. Plenty more information can be found out about the forthcoming trip at baffinbigwalls.com. As you'd expect in the era of almost real-time updating you'll be able to follow their progress on Twitter and through a Team Blog on their site.

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