The Greyskull Valley Expedition team included Dave Anderson, Laura Schmonsees, Trevor Deighton, and Andy Rich. The expedition spent 23 days in June 2003 in the Coast Range on the border of British Columbia and Alaska. On June 8th the expedition flew in via helicopter to the unexplored valley and established a base camp on a rocky outcrop surrounded by unnamed glaciers and granite peaks. The terrain is very similar to the Bugaboos. The valley is located about 7miles southwest of Mt. Foster.

During a brief period of high pressure and sunshine the team spent two days cragging at the base of various nearby peaks. The expedition hoped to get a sense of the area, the general rock quality, and look for more ambitious objectives to climb. The team free-climbed a variety of routes up to the 5.10/11 range. They found the rock quality to be generally poor and discovered that some of the lines were threatened by large cornice hazard.

On June 11th, Trevor and Laura started up the main objective, the sheer northeast prow of the 2,000ft feature dubbed Greyskull. They free climbed (5.10) up a right leaning ramp, encountering loose rock and marginal protection. The next day Andy and Dave pushed the line to a large snow ramp at 700ft above the glacial floor. They also hauled additional rock gear to the high point and found a site for a wall camp. They opted to rappell and fix ropes on the main butress of the lower wall, which would make jugging and hauling more straightforward. By the time they reached the ground the winds had set in and snow was blowing sideways.

The following two days, strong winds, snow and sleet kept the team in base camp. On June 16th the weather improved slightly. Laura and Andy jugged up the fixed lines that were badly frayed by the coarse rock and climbed two pitches higher. Dave and Trevor organized, packed and ferried four haul bags and two porta-ledges to the haul lines across the 1 km glaciated approach. They also jugged the lines and padded sharp edges, trundled loose rocks and established anchors for hauling. The weather once again deteriorated and forced the team back to base camp

The next four days were spent cowering in the tents as snow and winds up to 70mph/hr buffeted base camp. Finally on June 20th, with the pressure rising, the team jugged, hauled, and established a wall camp on the snow ledge . Snow and moderate winds continued as they settled into their wall camp for the night.

Snow continued through the next morning, but by early afternoon the weather cleared allowing Andy and Laura to start up the main headwall. The rock quality did not improve. The vertical, friable rock required delicate, slow aid climbing ( A3+). Both Andy and Laura took multiple falls while leading. During one pitch Andy fell 30feet when the rock broke and six placements failed. At 1:00am Andy and Laura returned to wall camp exhausted.

The next morning Trevor and Dave got an early start, hopeful that the rock would improve as they approached a crack system. The rock quality remained extremely poor. At one point the rock broke while Trevor was standing on a hook placement and drilling a rivet He took a 30 foot fall and again pulled out several pieces of protection. Above them the rock quality did not seem to be improving.

The weather had also deteriorated. A wall of dark clouds to the east indicated the next low pressure system was moving in from the ocean. Trevor and Dave radioed Laura and Trevor to discuss their options. Due to the bad rock and approaching storm the team decided to retreat from the wall.

By the time Dave and Trevor reach the wall camp, Laura and Andy had camp broken down and packed in the haul bags ready for the decent. As the team lowered the bags off the wall it began to snow. By the time they reached the base a full scale blizzard had set in. High winds (constant 25 mph with gusts to 60) and snow pounded the teams base camp for the next five days.

On June 28th, the storm began to break. At 6:00pm Dave and Andy left base camp to attempt of an ice route located on the east side of the main face of Greyskull. Andy led through a exposed bergshrund composed of water saturated snow. After 500 feet of steep scary snow climbing Dave and Andy arrived at the ice route. After climbing several pitches of steep waterfall ice (WI4/5), they found the melting ice was not freezing enough, even in the middle of the night, to provide any reasonable margin of safety. They returned to base camp at 3:00am

During that same night Trevor and Laura made a fourth class rock ascent of another peak dubbed Princess.

On the morning of June 30th, despite near white out conditions and 25mph winds, two helicopters came in and flew the team out of the mountains and back to Skagway, AK.

The overall weather during the expedition was extremely unsettled only three days of the trip were precipitation-free. In addition, the Greyskull Valley has predominately poor rock quality and cannot be recommended for rock climbing.

The Greyskull Expedition was a true adventure. The team explored terrain that no climbers had previously visited. Unfortunately, the poor weather and rock quality prevented the expedition achieving all of its goals. However, Trevor, Andy, Laura and Dave returned home safely better friends than when they left with a heightened appreciation for alpine wilderness of the northern Coast Range.