To gaze up at the East Face from Ruth Flat… ‘a great featureless rock wall rising 1000m with no lines, no cracks, no ledges’ and the reason for the name is clear.
No less awesome today than how it was perceived fifty years ago, the East Face of Fastness has proven to be a little shorter at 750m and there are cracks and ledges. But the climbing is as awesome as it was originally perceived to be, as Peter Dickson and his Polish partner, Miroslavc Sveticic found out when they made the first ascent in 1990. The pair accessed the face directly from Ruth Flat up the waterfall issuing from the face. In Peter’s understated comment ‘It’s not a good way to get there’, he sums up how well defended the face is.
The West Ridge of Fastness and first ascent of the peak was completed by Paul Powell, Colin Marshall, John Sage and Earle Riddiford in Dec 1945 from a camp on the Volta Glacier. Twenty years later Paul Powell was again camped on the Volta, this time to make the first ascent of the North Ridge with Keith Skinner, Peter Child and Geoff Bayliss on January 2, 1965.
The South Ridge was first ascended by Garth Matterson, Don Mee and Dave Tarrant on January 4, 1959. The mountain, and in particular the East Face, has everything the modern alpinist could wish for and will always deliver an intense experience.
Miroslav Sveticic was Slovenian, not Polish. The correct spelling of his name is Miroslav Sveticic