North West Territories Proboscis, Southeast Face, “Yukon Tears ...

North West Territories Proboscis, Southeast F ace, “Yukon Tears” Logan M ountains. In a three-day blitz in 1963, Layton Kor, Royal Robbins, Jim M cC arthy and D ick M cC racken clim bed a route on the southeast face o f Proboscis and issued in a new level by applying big-w all techniques to a rem ote alpine wall. In 1992, Todd Skinner, Paul Piana and G alen R ow ell made their all-free ascent o f the G reat C anadian K nife (AAJ, 1993, pages 68-77.) On A ugust 5, Scott C osgrove, K urt Sm ith and I com pleted the fourth ascent o f the face and the second free line. We chose a crack line 200 feet right of the K nife. A 3-pitch dihedral w ith good protection led to three pitches o f face clim bing, the aid-clim bing crux. The clim b then joined a steep, knobby crack for seven pitches to a ledge. A 5.2 traverse led to the top o f the K nife route, w here I added a 5.10 variation up a seam left o f the good crack. T hree m ore pitches took us to an exposed knife-edged ridge. Seven pitches o f low fifth-class boulder problem s brought us to the sum m it register, a metal film canister, circa 1960, and perfectly preserved yellow paper. We spent 19 days w orking on the 24-pitch route, finding 7 pitches o f 5.12, 2 o f 5.11 and 4 o f 5.10. J eff J a c k so n ,

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