Mount Hooker - A Labor of Love

A Labor of Love:

As I packed my bags for my second trip to Mount Hooker in the Wind River Range all I could feel was timid.

I had been out there the year prior and knew full well what it took to go rock climbing on this impressive 2,000 ft monolith. Rivaling the likes of El Cap but 15 miles into the backcountry, this was backcountry alpine big wall climbing.

The year prior I had witnessed Jesse Huey and Matt Segal putting in a multi year laborious effort to establish a new line up this granite giant. Still unsent at the time, all I could think about before departing was if I wanted to commit to this endeavor in the same way that they had. I admire what they were doing but questioned if I had what it took to do the same.

Mount Hooker really lends itself to face climbing, there are not many continuous crack systems or obvious features to follow meaning route finding is trickier than most areas. Finding a new route to climb on this mountain was going to be especially engaging, none the less our psyche was high.

Beaks, bolts, hand drills, cams, static line and draws. The kit was packed and the horses were booked to help me and my climbing partner Suraj lug our nearly 200 pounds of metal, nylon and food into the backcountry. Logistics settled, the time was upon us to put up or shut up.

The year prior I had been graciously welcomed and shown this area by Jesse, he showed me what it took to commit to new routing in this type of environment. Since it was Suraj’s first time out there and he had minimal new routing experience, this year I felt like I was taking on Jesse’s role. I however had never put up a route in this style before, going ground up questing into a never ending sea of granite. I was supposed to be showing Suraj the way but I myself was still very much a student.

On the job training became the mantra of our 2 weeks at Mount Hooker. We had initially planned to repeat a route before hunting for a line of our own, that plan quickly changed when we realized weather was becoming an issue and other climbers were eyeing down the route we planned on.

We instead opted to immediately start looking for something to call our own on this mountain and played imagination games with each other staring up at the wall with binoculars wondering were each pitch could go. Our wander lust took over and we immediately decided to put our efforts into a journey of unknowns.

Over the next 12 days we would toil away on a labor of love. Free climbing over marginal beaks, hand drilling bolts on lead in thunderstorms and experiencing mixtures of fear, excitement, doubt and joy. 4 hour belays/leads, up climbing and down climbing to find the way and trying our very best in the process to use as few points of aid as possible. The creativity of this process was unmatched by any other new routing I have done in the past and I absolutely loved it.

On the job training remained our mantra throughout and at a certain point we both let our guards down and leaned into the learning. We both learned from each other and became full time students of Mount Hooker.

One of the things I love about climbing is that we are always students of the craft. The sooner we give into that the sooner we grow, learn and find peace in the process. When we feel like we know it all that is when we deserve the most to be humbled.

As the days passed and lines were pushed further up the wall we garnered a reputation from other climbers as always being the last ones on the wall, waiting out storms at hanging belays and burning the midnight oil to make any more progress. I finally felt like we were gaining what it took to make our dream a reality and I saw a little piece of what I so admired in Jesse and Matt in us.

We were unable to take our route to the summit in the 2 weeks that we were there but remain psyched as ever to go back each summer until we are able to free climb from ground to top on our line. Our labor of love continues.

Until next season Mighty Mount Hooker!

Follow Stefan for more adventures! @stefanhadeed