The VIMFF Summer Fest is back on June 22 at the Shipyards in North Vancouver!
Matteo Agnoloni (he/him), a rare homegrown North Vancouverite, was introduced to the coastal mountains early on in his childhood through his parents’ adventures. He developed his own passion in the mountains later on in life, and now finds joy in climbing the steep crack climbs on the Stawamus Chief in the summer, chases the often-poor conditions in the local North Shore Mountains during the winter, and dreams of that perfect alpine bivy. When he’s not fighting gravity, you may find him with his wife and dogs on a beach somewhere watching people surf, wishing he could do the same.
The Waddington Range is comprised of the highest and most technical peaks in BC, including the tallest in the province, Mount Waddington (4,019m). In August 2023, VIMFF Coast Mountain Adventure Grant recipients Ethan Berman, Matteo Agnoloni, and Sebastian Pelletti set out to circumnavigate the nine major peaks of the Range. The circuit of the five Serra Peaks, Tiedemann, Asperity, Combatant, and Waddington, had been traversed before, but never as a complete loop, nor in the reverse direction.
As often is the case in the mountains, the trip didn’t exactly go as planned. Unsettled weather and snow-covered rock challenged the climbers, who managed to make the first traverse of the five Serra peaks from East to West over four days before cutting the loop short and circling back to the Plummer Hut. They opened up unclimbed terrain that had baffled decades of climbers, leading to multiple first ascents in less-than-ideal conditions. They also witnessed the rapid changes taking place in the range, observing that many of the snow, ice and glacier routes in the guidebook are becoming inaccessible and descent options are deteriorating. Ethan and Matteo will also speak to the intensity of returning to the location of their accident in 2022, where they experienced an extremely close call when Matteo was struck in the leg by rockfall while rappelling into the guts of the Serra Spires.
