The North Face

Rock Climber | Mark Synnott

After graduating from Middlebury College in 1993, Mark Synnott had no idea where he was going or what he would do for work. He just knew he wanted to climb. He ended up finding work as a carpenter, since it was conducive to a transient lifestyle. (“Build a house, climb a wall. Build a house, climb a mountain.”) Then, in 1996, Mark spent 39 days living on the side of the 4,700-foot north face of Polar Sun Spire, a rock tower rising from a frozen fjord in Canada’s Baffin Island. The ascent changed his life and started him on his quest to climb some of the biggest walls on the planet.

Learn more about Mark Synnott.

Jul 24 | TNF Newfoundland Expedition Dispatch #3

By Mark Synnott

Rain, rain, go away come back another day

After the beautiful day Mark and I had to climb Leviathan and James and Alex finished an incomplete route just to the left, we naively thought that the rest of the blue skies of the day might be the mark of the trip.  How wrong we were. Rain followed for several days and then several more days... Our saving grace was a big dome tent, a substanstial food supply and lots of hiking, all of which served to keep insanity at bay.

Every morning I would peel back the door of my tent, hoping for a least some semblance of clear skies and dry rock, but after the one morning, Devil's bay only greeted me with either full rain or fog so thick that I couldn't see anyone else's tent.  We managed to climb two more days in between rain but since the majority of the wall was either wet or seeping, we were quite limited with what we could do.

Impressivly James and Alex managed to climb Lucifer's Lighthouse (a 12c that Chris Weidner and Justin Sjong  put up) which they dubbed the best route on the wall.  Since Mark and I though Leviathan was amazing, we were curious to see how they compared.

After more days sitting in the rain, we realized we would be robbed of our chance to try Lucifer's Lighthouse and fulful our initial ambition of adding some new routes to the wall.  One memorable evening we were almost robbed of our tents as well.  A vicious storm boasting 70mph wings ripped through our camp.  Having been rather blasé about securing my tent to the ground I woke up in the middle of the night alarmed to find that it had detached itself from its anchoring and was by the most part held down by me alone.  With nothing else to do but venture out to try to repair it, I struggled with one hand to prevent the tent from taking flight and with the other I managed to attach the guide-lines to some bigger boulders.  I woke up to find the rest of the team bleary eyed, telling stories of similair experiences.  Well, apart from Honnold who managed to sleep like a baby throughout the whole storm.

The final few days of our stay at Devil's Bay were particulary wet and when George's boat finally appeared through the fog, we were certainly ready to leave.  All in all our mission to Devil's Bay has been a fun adventure- Blow Me Down is a cool wall with some really good routes and loads of potential for more, the people are really interesting and friendly and the area has stunning natural beauty...it's just a shame about the rain!

--Hazel Findlay 

 

Jul 18 | The North Face "Towers of the Ennedi" Film

By Mark Synnott

Just wanted to share the film festival edit from our adventure to Chad.  Thanks for watching! 

 

 

Jul 14 | TNF Newfoundland Expedition Dispatch #2

By Mark Synnott

I'm sitting in basecamp just above the rocky shoreline of Devil's Bay on the south coast of Newfoundland.  A few hundred yards to the east rises Blow Me Down, which may well be the most beautiful sea cliff in the world: 1300 feet of weathered granite rising striaght from the sea.  It's raining hard and the stream running next to our cook tent has turned into a raging torrent, drowning out all other sounds.  Past the mouth of the bay the sky is worse before it gets better.  Everything is soaked, including me, but I'm filled with a deep sense of contentment as I think back on the climb I completed yesterday with Hazel Findlay, the newest member of The North Face Climbing Team.  Unlike today, the weather was perfect: a deep blue cloudless sky, light winds, the gentle swell of the Atlantic rolling into the bay as a thousand pinpoints of light shimmered magically on the surface of the ocean.  Climbing with nothing more than t-shirts, a rack of gear and a light pack, we spent the day working our way up perfect hand and finger cracks, thin faces, stemming corners and aretes.
After ten beautiful pitches we pulled over the lip onto the summit.  "Very Nice," said Hazel, with a perfet Borat accent, as we shared a high five and took a few moments to survey the magnificent country that stretched out below us.  To the south the rock lined the fjord of Devil's Bay led straight out to the mighty Atlantic, with nothing but 2,000 miles of cold ocean between us and the coast of Europe.  To the north, miles of endless rolling granite moonscape, punctuated by rivers, lakes and lush strips of greenery, stretched into a mysterious, uninhabited no man's land.  To our east and west lay more fjords, where we could just discern the tops of other unkown cliffs, which begged for further exploration.  More adventures beckoned, but we turned our attention back toward camp, where the cold beers we'd stashed in the river awaited.

Now we sit sipping coffee, waiting for another break in the weather, content with the knowledge that eventually the sun will shine again, the rock will dry, and then we'll be off on another grand Newfie adventure. 

Mark Synnott

(sent via patchy cell service on the summit of Blow Me Down by Tim Kemple)