BURSTOver five days at the start of July, American alpinists Eli Spitulnik and Michael Telstad made the first ascent of Hologram Wall (VI 3,300′ 5.9 A3R M6+ WI5) on Alaska’s Kichatna Spire. Their line is the first to climb directly up the mountain’s imposing south face, succeeding where an earlier attempt in April 2025 had been turned back by storms. Telstad described the ascent as a committing blend of big-wall and alpine climbing, undertaken in one of the most remote corners of the Alaska Range.
After spending 1o days moving equipment, fixing pitches and sitting out bad weather, the pair finally launched their summit push late on July 4 to make the most of a brief forecast window. As Telstad told Planet Mountain, they climbed using a hybrid style, hauling a large wall bag for the lower third of the route before abandoning most of the heavy equipment and continuing with lighter packs. By the time they reached the top of the lower buttress, exhaustion was already setting in. As Telstad put it, “the 24-hour clock holds little meaning under the midnight sun; the only clock that matters is the countdown to the next storm.”
A short four-hour rest allowed the climbers to recover before descending a single rappel into the snow couloir that led to the upper mountain. Fast progress on moderate mixed terrain ended beneath the route’s crux, where a blank-looking wall blocked access to the corner system above. Three demanding pitches of aid and free climbing through unstable, ice-covered flakes eventually brought them onto the line of the 2005 Black Crystal Arête. From there they enjoyed several pitches of excellent rock before tackling the chimney known as Icebox Desperado. Reaching the summit ridge soaked through, Telstad watched anxiously as a thunderstorm built over the neighbouring peaks, with hot water bottles providing a rare moment of comfort before they continued.
Several more pitches, many of them climbed through running water, led to the summit at 2:30 a.m. on July 7. Telstad recalled the surreal atmosphere, describing “a completely silent, windless summit, the only sounds being those inside our heads and the chime of carabiners.” After a warm meal and a brief 30-minute nap, the pair immediately began the long descent, eventually reaching their cached bivouac gear before continuing to the glacier below.
The return proved almost as demanding as the climb itself. They reached the base before enduring stuck ropes, near falls into crevasses, a final nap among the talus, and a whiteout march back to camp. Telstad noted that from waking on July 4 until finally sleeping on July 8, the pair had managed less than seven hours of sleep, excluding brief moments of dozing at belays. With food running critically low, they even resorted to eating cough drops from their first-aid kit as snacks before making it back over the pass to the Tatina Glacier, where they were picked up just ahead of another prolonged spell of storms.
Hologram Wall was the team’s second attempt on the face, having retreated from an ultralight push in April 2025 after being pinned down by a storm on a narrow cornice. The new route is the first up Kichatna Spire’s south face directly; all previous ascents had approached via the more accessible north and east faces. Despite the seriousness of the climb, the ascent left little trace. The pair drilled just two shallow bat-hook holes through a blank section on the lower buttress, placed no bolts or rivets, and returned to base camp with only a single 5 mm glacier rope still intact after damaged and abandoned ropes took their toll.
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