Gripped Magazine
Ace Alpinist Says New Alaska Line is “Probably the Most Sustained Ice Route I’ve Climbed”
Matt Cornell, Jackson Marvell, and Alan Rousseau have climbed a new route on the south face of Mount Dickey in the Alaska Range. They graded the 1,500-metre line at WI6+ M6+ A1 and named it Heavy is the Hand.
The route followed an iced corner system that Rousseau had first noticed 15 years earlier. Over two days on the wall, they climbed what Rousseau described on Instagram as “probably the most sustained ice route I’ve climbed.” Adding: “It felt really good to put a long challenging route together again.”
Cornell, Marvell, and Rousseau are among the most accomplished alpinists of their generation. On Mount Dickey alone, Marvell and Rousseau established Ruth Gorge Grinder (AI6+ M7, 1,500 m) in 2019. Four years later, the trio completed the first ascent of Aim for the Bushes (AI6 M6 X, 1,600 m). Cornell, alongside Sam Hennessey and Rob Smith, also made the second ascent of Blood from the Stone (M7+ WI6+ X A1, 1,500 m). In 2023, all three made the first ascent of Roundtrip Ticket (AI5+ M7, 2,700 m) on the north face of Jannu, read more about it here.
“This was definitely a special route for us,” Rousseau said in a story on Alpinist about Heavy is the Hand. “It’s one we have looked at almost every year since we started climbing here. It is also a route I have been intimidated by for a few reasons: it’s so continually steep and it’s marked by the objective hazards of big sunny ice lines. It was worth the wait for the conditions we found it in. Long periods of cold, sunny, weather are needed for the route to form. Even with temperatures only reaching the teens in the Gorge while we were there, pitches were melting out in the afternoon sun. We experienced time consuming leads, sparse protection and sustained climbing for 16 long pitches up through the main dihedral system.”
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