The Firn Line

It was the summer of 1996.  At the time, I was 21 years old, living in a primitive cabin in the small fishing village of Ninilchik, Alaska.  That summer, I’d landed a job working as a park ranger assistant for Alaska State Parks, and although I’d like to say I was doing something cool like building trails, the reality is that I was cleaning gnarly outhouses, packing up bags of garbage, and picking up fish guts off the beaches.  Although I was far away from any climbing, I was often mesmerized by the Aleutian and Neacola Ranges, 50 miles across the water.So I was excited when I received a stash of beloved issues of Climbing Magazine in the mail.  As I poured through each issue, I was stopped in my tracks when I stumbled onto a story about 2 climbers who’d just attempted the North Face of Mount Neacola, the highest mountain in the Neacola Range.  The climbers, Topher Donahue and Kennan Harvey, had spent 5 days attempting a route they dubbed the Medusa Face. The photos were inspiring, and terrifying to say the l