STONE COLDTEXT BY DREW POGGE | PHOTOS BY SIMON PETERSON

RUGGED, RAW AND REMOTE:

IN THE YUKON’S TOMBSTONEMOUNTAINS

FINDING NEW LINES IS ONE THING.

SURVIVINGIS ANOTHER.

TOMBSTONEMOUNTAINS

SURVIVINGIS ANOTHER.

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AFTER EXAMINING MY COD-COLORED FEET and

purple toenails, and cramming my feet hastily into ice-glazed

boot liners, I skin across the shadowed valley of the North

Klondike River to where my partners already stand, shivering quietly

in the sun. Backcountry Photo Editor Simon Peterson peers out from

inside a thick down hood and neck warmer, while Clark Corey stands

facing the sun, precisely maximizing every square inch of exposure.

There’s little to say: we hadn’t planned for cold like this. It’s still frigid,

but the radiation feels balmy after a negative 40-degree night. Clark,

too, is dealing with frozen feet, and while mine are still numb, panic

has turned to resignation. The only way to get warm is to climb.

The Tombstones slant steeply from the earth like ancient leaning

obelisks. Polished, weather-etched faces reflect fractured, angular

ridges, and the central spires of Tombstone Mountain (7,191 feet) and

Mount Monolith (7,103 feet) spiral skyward like the most dramatic

peaks of Patagonia or Pakistan. These dark towers, weathered by eons

of Arctic wind and cold, and streaked by thin ribbons of snow, impose

reverence and respect. They are old, and they have stories to tell.

Slowly, we switchback up the sunny, south-facing ridge above,

swinging our arms to warm our fingers. The powdery 35° spines that

divide this face could produce the first real turns of the trip. And after

days of suffering and setbacks, morale is fading. We need this.

Besides the cold, our 12-mile journey up the North Klondike River

from the gravel Dempster Highway to Divide Lake took three days, two

days longer than expected. The snow in the valley consisted of unsup-

ported, ski-sucking facets—tiny, sugary grains of ancient dendrites.

Each step was like an elevator dropping to the ground floor, bottoming

with a slight bounce and a pneumatic hiss of crystals in collapse.

Then it snowed; huge, airy flakes that accumulated quickly into

two feet of fluff—two feet of additional work. Often sinking thigh

deep, we took turns leading, trying to find the path of least resistance

through a tangled jungle of stunted willows and blocky black spruce.

The second in line widened the trench for the 100-pound expedition

sled, which was towed by the third, who leaned into the traces of the

plastic sledge like a whipped husky.

We made only four taxing miles the first day, and made camp

in a stand of willows next to a back channel of the Klondike. A new

ski-rating system was in order: the Facet Awfulness Rating Table

COLD.It’s a living thing, blindly groping at every exposed stitch and

seam of my sleeping bag. Here and there, it finds weakness and

slowly worms inside. I roll onto my side to escape, but cold is

persistent, and the process repeats. It’s a slow rotisserie of sleepless

frustration and misery. Damn the cold. Damn the snow and ice and

wind. Damn the Tombstones.

This is Yukon Territory—dog-sled Yukon, gold-rush Yukon—where

Arctic reality becomes legend. More than 250 miles north of Whitehorse,

40 miles north of the famous stampede town of Dawson City, and just

two degrees below the Arctic Circle, it is Canada’s North with a capital

N. In early April, Tombstone Territorial Park—one of Canada’s least

visited preserves—is far from spring melt-out, and the 850-square-

mile park’s elegant, soaring spires are locked solidly in snow and ice. It’s

a place where few ever venture in winter, for good reason.

Morning begins to brighten the orange walls of the tent, but it will

be hours before direct sunlight overcomes the sheer ridges above

camp. My breath has formed colonies of delicate ice feathers on the

ceiling and walls. Like lace cocoons, they swing tenuously from every

surface, and any motion—rolling, coughing, a hint of wind—knocks

them down. Flurries of exploding ice crystals skate across the nylon

shell of my sleeping bag like spilled salt.

I reach down to feel my feet and find them nearly wooden—the

three smallest toes on each are paralyzed entirely. Despite two pairs

of heavy socks, a minus-20 degree down sleeping bag, a down-

insulated sleeping pad and a bedtime hot-water bottle, my feet froze

as I slept.

Images of shriveled, blackened flesh filter into my mind, as I

flash to stories of Yukon legend—classic tales of suffering, frostbite,

betrayal and death in the North. I run the numbers: It’s still more than

20-below zero. It took us three days of overland slogging to get here.

And the nearest hospital is in Whitehorse, a seven-hour drive from the

trailhead—when the road’s open.

Fighting panic, I lie on my back and watch each breath crystallize

in the tent’s subtle orange glow, as feathers of ice flutter slowly down

and melt silently on my lips.

Opening Spread: 40-below zero at Divide Lake. Aurora Borealis and a shooting star above. Top left: Beating around the bush in the North Klondike River valley. Bottom left: Deep trenching and slow going through bottomless facets. This page: The author

skis with frozen toes. Unnamed peaks behind.

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North America. Ancestors of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in called the

Tombstones Odah Chaa Tat: “among the sharp, ragged rocky

mountains.” But unlike us, they were smart enough to leave these

mountains in winter.

Because of the elevation and shape of the Tombstones’ broad

valleys, cold air funnels directly from the Arctic, making the area virtu-

ally indistinguishable from high Arctic tundra, normally found 125 miles

farther north. Much of the Park is treeless, windswept and barren, with

permafrost soil and mostly low, ground-hugging plants. In summer,

caribou, moose and Dall sheep inhabit these valleys, along with grizzly

and black bear, and 137 species of birds. But in winter few animals

remain. We’ve seen only a few ptarmigan, a lynx and a lone moose,

chest deep in facets. This landscape is a borderland—not wholly

Arctic, but damn close.

After an afternoon spent drying gear—watching moisture

inexplicably sublimate away in the sub-zero temperatures—the sky

gives us a show. This far north, sunset isn’t until 10:30 p.m., even in

April, so for hours it rests low on the horizon, casting the mountains

and tundra in soft light. It reflects ice crystals suspended in the frigid

air, and the entire sky glitters with tiny fireflies. There is no wind and

absolutely no sound—graveyard silence. We stand together and listen

and watch, and feel powerfully, elementally alone.

But when the sun finally sets, the temperature plummets and

a siege begins. We scramble to boil water for bed bottles, zip into

tents and sleeping bags, and prepare for cold’s invasion. Enduring is

our only option.

As the cold sinks deeper, exposed skin tightens and every sound

changes. I’ve long read about Arctic silence in stories by the likes

of Jack London and Robert Service; the kind that famously drove

normal men to madness and murder. It always seemed that literary

license, or at least hyperbole, must be at play. But in the darkened

tents, there is no life besides our own. No sound besides those we

make. Absolute stillness.

The very air—the molecular drum of sound itself—is frozen. This is

Arctic silence, at last. The normally bright crinkle of a nylon sleeping

bag sounds dull, like canvas. Turning the page of a book with gloved

fingers scrapes like tearing cotton. The switch on a headlamp doesn’t

click so much as it cracks. Even my heartbeat sounds unfamiliar,

hollow and dull in my chest. I cinch the hood tighter to my face, and

wait for sleep. Tonight, there’s a down jacket wrapped securely around

my feet.

MY ICE AXE IS LEVERED into a rotten crack, and I have

one toe balanced on a crumbling edge of rock halfway up

the 15-foot cliff. Above, another 600 vertical feet of 55°

snow hangs precariously in the couloir. Below, Simon and Clark stand

above a five-foot-wide, rock-walled hallway and 1,000-vertical foot

apron. “You got it,” Clark says. “There’s a good foot to your left.” We’re

in a couloir above Divide Lake; a line interrupted by an inconvenient

cliff that offers only two options: go up, or go down. I’m trying to go up.

Groping for another hold, my hand finds only facets and choss. I sweat

despite the cold.

It was a line of immediate attraction, an almost invisible drip of

snow between tight walls, an elegant but unobvious and discontinuous

challenge. We named it “Cheeseburger in Paradise,” and what looked

from a distance like a five-foot rock step turned out to be taller, steeper

and more complicated than we had anticipated—much like the rest

of the Tombstones. In the dark shadow of the couloir, it hasn’t gotten

warmer than minus-10 degrees, and my hands are becoming stiff.

With a final careful crossover move, I pull over the top and build a

T-trench to belay Simon and Clark up. “Nice moves,” Clark says as he

comes into view. “I wouldn’t have wanted to do that without a rope.”

Had I known how sketchy it would be, I wouldn’t have done it at all.

Plunging our axes with each ladder-rung step, the rest of the

couloir passes quickly in deep, cold powder. Below us, the line disap-

pears in a steep V, like headlights down a desert highway. But despite

the severe pitch and exposure below, skiing feels natural and easy in

forgiving, perfect snow. Each turn is a gentle, sinking release of energy,

with a moment of freefall followed by reassuring resistance. The

weight of each turn grows, however, as I approach the edge of the cliff

and peer into the narrow maw of the constriction below.

A lone vertical crack located well above the cliff takes two nuts as

a rappel anchor, but a doubled rope won’t reach the bottom. We tie off

the cord and leave it behind, hoping not to need it again.

Below the cliff, Clark’s board slides easily through the narrow,

50-foot-long constriction, but Simon and I pin our 190cm ski tails

(F.A.R.T.). That day rated high, and it seemed possible that nothing

steep would be safely skiable, even if we made it to base camp. It was

a sobering thought, but two days later, Divide Lake came into sight

below snow-capped Tombstone pillars.

IT’S STILL FRIGID, but from the ridgeline 1,600 feet above camp,

spectacular views open on all sides. The atmosphere is thin and

clear, and the peaks look unusually crisp. Clark’s beginning to

regain feeling in his toes, and ripping skins feels good; we’re finally

about to make turns. My digits remain numb, however, and I think

morbidly about the Sourtoe.

In Dawson City, there’s a uniquely Yukon cocktail: toe, served

neat. Named in mockery of the traditional title for winter-hardened

miners (Sourdoughs), it’s a double shot of Yukon Jack garnished with

a severed human toe. Frostbitten, amputated, or just plain missing,

eight toes have been donated to the Downtown Hotel bar over the

years, where they are preserved in salt until needed. There’s just one

rule posted behind the bar. “You can drink it fast, you can drink it

slow—but the lips have got to touch the toe.” We each took the shot a

week ago. Now it seems possible that I might be the next donor, and

the irony stings.

My first turns send powder spraying over a cornice and sluffing

down the bowl. Speed and rhythm are familiar friends, and near

the bottom, controlled carves give way to giant, reeling arcs. Clark

rides the next sub-ridge west, surfing a corniced wave all the way

down, before Simon follows, making wide, fast turns to the lake.

Finally, success.

TOMBSTONE  TERRITORIAL  PARK is a product of

the partnership between the Yukon government and First

Nations Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people, who wish to see their

ancestral homelands preserved. Stone tools, camps and caches

have been recorded in 78 sites throughout the Park, dating back

8,000 years—some of the earliest documented habitation in

The 2,000-foot walls of Mount Monolith rise above

Pencil-Thin Moustache Couloir.

This page top: Crossing the wind-scoured Tombstone Valley near Talus Lake. Below: Tombstone Spires. North

Klondike River valley at left, reaching out of sight. “This day feels like a reward for persevering—this line is a gift.”

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Top left: Heading toward Tombstone Peak, just before the wind. Top: Clark Corey slashing a turn on the warmest day of the trip. Bottom: After thawing out the stoves, Pogge tends to dinner. The cold demanded calories—Snickers before bed were popular.

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against the cliff wall at our back and slip through at an angle, leaning

awkwardly over our tips like confused ski jumpers. My ski tails clatter

unnervingly against the rock as I ease down the 45° choke. But on the

apron, speeding toward the lake and into the afternoon sun is ample

reward for the climb, made all the better by fresh tracks plainly visible

from camp.

That night, through the vents in my tent, I watch the northern

lights spinning lazy and green above camp. Simon braves the midnight

freeze to shoot photos for over an hour, and his whistling carries over

the tundra like clear canyon echoes.

ON DAY SEVEN, AFTER WAITING for the morning

sun to warm the tents, we hurry to eat and pack camp. Our

destination is Talus Lake, on the west side of Tombstone

Pass. Originally, the plan was to circumnavigate the range, but

facets and new snow have squashed any hope of completing the

55-mile journey. Instead, we’ll set up a second base camp six miles

away and explore the next series of intricate cirques, folded into

the range like sharply creased origami.

At the top of the pass, views toward the ominous pyramid of

Tombstone Mountain hint at the scale of the range—this valley is just a

sliver. And like so many peaks here, Tombstone is dripping with excru-

ciatingly discontinuous couloirs that dead end in vertical rock walls.

These mountains formed when hot magma rioted violently into

narrow cracks and fissures in overlying sedimentary rock. There it

cooled, forming tortured, vertical veins of tough syenite stone. Over

time, glaciers peeled softer sedimentary slabs from the base of the

mountains, leaving the Tombstones’ distinctive sheer faces and split-

ter couloirs. Just a few miles north of these sculpted spires, however,

the landscape is defined by a singular lack of glaciation: Berengia, the

great land bridge.

During the last ice age, when global sea levels were more than 400

feet lower than today, Alaska’s Bering Strait was a grassy plain. This

cold, arid land—Berengia—extended from the Yukon to Siberia, consist-

ing of ice-free steppe tundra, much like the northern Yukon today.

Plants, animals and insects crossed from Asia to North America, and,

following the herds of wooly mammoth, giant bison, horses and camels,

came the first humans. Ancestors of the Tr’ondëk Hwëch’in people

likely discovered the Tombstones as they migrated south.

Now, as we migrate over Tombstone Pass, the stillness of Divide

Lake is replaced by shrieking downslope wind that cuts through every

layer of clothing. We scurry for cover in a low gully and revisit the

plan. Talus Lake is in sight a few miles down valley, but the snow

is scalloped and hard, and the lake is completely exposed. In these

temperatures, the wind will freeze exposed skin in moments. Simon

has his shovel out first; it’s best to dig in here and begin our exploration

in the morning.

WITH THE RISING SUN AT MY BACK, my shadow

seems like that of someone else. I don’t feel the cold or

the blowing gale, or fatigue. Goggles, a facemask, a hat

and two hoods muffle the screaming wind to a hoarse whisper—it

sounds almost peaceful. Clark and Simon trudge along in similarly

independent worlds: heads down, skinning across swales of tundra

pocked by strangely beautiful wind-sharpened snow.

Ahead, the thrusting summit of Mount Monolith rises above the

valley’s glaciated dish. An hour later, at the crest of a moraine, the wind

ceases entirely. A few feet below, it whips down-valley in full force, but

here the invisible current is calm. We peel back protective goggles and

masks like undersea divers returning to the surface and climb toward

a deep gash splitting the 2,000-foot southwest face of Monolith.

Shrouded in clouds and mist, the absolutely sheer walls are theatrical,

and the narrow slot earns a name: “Pencil-Thin Moustache.”

The top of the couloir is more than 60° and capped by an overhung

cornice. Perched under its tube, on a narrow platform chopped in the snow,

I look down and can see more than 15 miles to Talus Lake, Tombstone

Mountain, and beyond. Between these rock walls, it’s like looking into

a gorge rather than down a mountain. The first few turns are shock-

ingly steep, and my hip and elbow brush the snow with each committing

15-foot drop. The pitch mellows into a more comfortable 40-degree

range until we ride onto a small tarn, among dozens of mausoleum-sized

boulders that have presumably plummeted from above.

Left: Cheesburger in Paradise Couloir, a hidden beauty. Right: Clark Corey riding above the choke in fantastic snow.

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Enduring the hour-and-a-half skin back through the exposed

valley, we are forced again into solitary confinement by the wind, but

fueled by success and the promise of a hot dinner. At camp, however,

the stoves are frozen. After disassembling both with tiny wrenches

and freezing our bare fingers on frosted brass and steel, the problem

reveals itself: there’s ice in the jets—our potent white gas fuel liter-

ally froze solid. The lunacy of the problem doesn’t go unnoticed, but

after thawing the jets in our mouths, the stoves roar once more as

Monolith’s summit fist gleams in the last light of evening.

THE MORNING DAWNS WARM—only minus-10 degrees.

We’ve been back at Divide Lake for three days—the wind in the

neighboring valley was just too cold. Too dangerous. Camp is in a

different place this time, however, on the north side of the valley, where

our tents catch the earliest morning sun. We’re learning.

There’s one last major objective in this basin—a 2,100-foot chute

spilling from the astonishing chiseled face of an unnamed behemoth,

west of the lake. The climb is easy, with cardboard snow under a foot

of dry, settled powder. Enormous rock walls frame us once more, rising

hundreds of vertical feet on both sides, and a short rock scramble at the

top leads to expansive views of the interior peaks of the Tombstones.

Unnamed, unclimbed and unbelievably rugged, their skiing potential

is enormous. Under intense sun, the mercury climbs into low positive

digits—warmer than it’s been since we arrived 11 days ago. Clark is still

pointing out new lines to ski, while Simon shoots photos feverishly. This

day feels like a reward for persevering—this line is a gift.

Clark rides out front, banking a high heelside turn off a cliffside

drift then rocketing onto the huge runout below. Simon packs away

the camera and takes off next, hauling into the sun. I follow, and at

the bottom, Clark points out a beautiful, zigzagging chute splitting

a shadowed north face. “We should’ve skied that,” he says, with a

pang of regret.

It’s been almost two weeks, and we’ve finally found our rhythm

in the indefatigable cold—we’re comfortable. Maybe too comfort-

able. Back at camp, Simon is standing on a rock in the sun. He isn’t

wearing a shirt.

THE SKIN OUT TAKES JUST FIVE HOURS. Following

our hard-fought trench, we fly down the valley, and it’s hard

to believe it took three days of backbreaking effort in the

opposite direction. On the emerald-blue ice of the Klondike River,

gushing overflow and frightening expansion cracks demand atten-

tion—it feels suddenly like spring. We know the trailhead is near

when trees appear on the riverbanks.

At the truck, slipping into dry cotton socks and tennis shoes after

two weeks of frozen boot liners is sublime. Beers stashed beside the

rig are frozen solid, but after partially thawing them on the defroster,

we crack open deformed cans in celebration. Simon glances down

between icy sips and laughs out loud. He holds up the can and reads:

“Yukon Brewing Company; Beer Worth Freezing For.” z

This expedition was made possible in part by the

Hans Saari Memorial Fund. Check out video of the trip at

backcountrymagazine.com/tombstones

Top: Pogge takes his turn with the 100-pound sled. The sticks are tent anchors, harvested at lower elevation. Bottom: Corey climbing below

the behemoth. “Enormous rock walls frame us once more, rising hundreds of vertical feet on both sides.” Facing Page: Under frigid clearing skies,

Clark Corey center-punches Pencil-Thin Moustache Couloir.