51 | Marc-Andre Leclerc — Tragedy with a View

Without a doubt, he was one of the best rock climbers of his generation. The way that he scaled walls of rock, ice, and snow was seen as almost an art form, taking shape by how he placed his hands, where he placed his feet, and how he lived his life with dedication to the ascent.

As with many of the greatest, It’s hard to encapsulate everything that they’ve accomplished into a single story, a quick description that can be Fully digested in a few sentences.

These people, as with everyone, require a deeper discussion. A moment where you sit down, turn your devices off and really listen with your heart.

Upon request today, we deliver an ode to Marc Andre LeClaire. And we will not glance over his formidable partner, Ryan Johnson.

As implied in the intro, this is a requested story that one of the listeners. She reached out to me on Instagram and asked that we talk about MarC Andre LeClaire and I wanted to also include in here that a lot of the research and stuff that I see is really heavily focused on Marc and there seems to be less information about Ryan who was his climbing partner on this final climb and so I wanted to take a little bit of time to also talk about Ryan and the legacy and which he is leaving.

The mendenhall towers are made up of 7 peaks, that run east to west, 12 miles north of Juneau Alaska. Also, side note, when I searched the location using my maps app, it told me the towers are “permanently closed”, so I thought that was funny that they have a profile for them.

Anyways, the 7 peaks are named, from west to east, are West Tower, Second tower, also known as Midget, Main Tower, 4th tower, 5th tower, 6th tower and 7th tower.

The main tower is the tallest of the 7, and raises 6,910 feet or 2,106 km into the air. The north face takes up 2,500 feet of that elevation and until 2018 was unclimbable. This face, by itself, for anyone who needs a size comparison, is taller than Yosemite’s Half Dome.

There are several route to be able to climb the towers. Some routes being as short as 500 feet, and the tallest been 2,500 feet or 152 to 762 meters. And these are specific routes that lead to other routes to climb to the summits.

The south face of the towers are significantly less technical and shorter than the north side of the mountains.

To get to the towers you can hike to the glacier and start there or charter a helicopter to take you directly to the glacier. To hike, it’s expected to take a day or two, where flying takes about a half hour.

The towers are home to only two known fatalities, those being Marc Andre Leclerc and Ryan Johnson.

At 25, Marc had made some really epic climbs that others might consider bold and maybe reckless. But this made him the athlete he was.

Prior to 2018, Ryan had what looked like an obsession with the Mendenhall towers. Being so close to where he grew up, when Ryan found a natural talent in climbing, he honed that talent with practice and gained skill and knowledge and confidence.

His obsession became a goal when he started climbing the Mendenhall towers, creating numerous routes, and then his focus narrowed in on the unclimbed north face of the main tower.

In 2015, he set out to attempt the north face, but after making it up to the half way point, and finding the ice dangerously thin, he decided to bail. This would be the same route that he and Marc would climb 3 years later.

The climb, he explained, wasn’t technical, there was just no way to protect yourself or your partner in the event of a fall. The granite they would climb was extremely fragile and the open face meant that were was little to stop a fall.

In short, even if climbing with a partner, they would need to treat the climb as if they were free climbing the face, solo. And so, in January of 2018, Ryan reached out to Marc to see if he wanted to climb the north face of the main tower with him. With Marc’s skill set and desire to climb, Marc was the clear choice in a climbing partner when developing a new route.

On Saturday, March 3, 2018, Marc and his girlfriend Brette kissed goodbye as Marc was heading to Alaska and Brette was heading to warmer weather in Tasmania. They were both chasing different climbs.

Marc was flying to meet 34 year old Ryan Johnson, who had invited him to climb Mendenhall Tower. With the weather looking good, marc decided to take Ryan up on his offer.

On March 4th, a Sunday, Marc and Ryan boarded a chopper from Coastal Helicopters and flew to the Mendenhall glacier, just north of the towers.

Once they landed, they checked the weather and saw that, while the sun was shining, the snow seemed stable and it was a beautiful day in that moment, there was a high pressure system on its way.

This doesn’t necessarily mean anything, but it is a sign of stable weather- and it was predicted to last 3 days.

About a half mile from the very base of the main tower, Ryan and Marc left some gear, including skis, that they wouldn’t need until they were on their way home.

The plan was to shimmy up the north face, come along the ridge to the east until they found a good descent route, then pick up their gear and ski the 10 miles back to Juneau by Wednesday, March 7.

Upon arriving, they immediately set to work on the climb. While the climb wasn’t as challenging as either of them had experienced in the past, the sun did set at 5:35pm, so Marc and Ryan Tied in and slept on the face of the main tower.

At daybreak, Marc and Ryan started to climb to the narrow summit of Mendenhall's main tower, and at 10:30am on March 5, 2018, they made it to the summit. Successfully laying a new route via the north face.

The climb had been as smooth and undramatic as anyone could hope for.

The summit was only the side of a dinner table, but gave them the space to stop and take a breath and take in the enormity of what they’d just accomplished.

Both men had set numerous routes on different mountains, but for Ryan this one was incredibly special. He achieved his goal, they had incredible weather, he was with a prodigy of a climber and he felt on top of the world.

Marc text Brette, saying he was at the summit, it was an incredible climb and sent her photos while also posting to Instagram.

Ryan, next to him, stood and made a slow circle with his arm outstretched. He was taking a video that he would send to his wife.

Their view was perfect. There wasn’t a single cloud in the sky and there was nothing but more gigantic peaks of Alaskan mountains in their view.

This feeling of accomplishment, gratitude and bliss would be short lived.

They were expected to make it back to their base camp by March 7, but after family and friends didn’t hear from either Marc or Ryan, Brette called the Juneau mountain rescue to see if they had any information.

And they did. They had spoke to Ryan shortly before he went on the climb, and Ryan gave them the itinerary detailing that they wouldn’t be back to their camp until late Wednesday, March 7, or this day that brette was calling them.

Remember, they have cell phone reception in certain areas, so there is the potential that if these men were in trouble, one would be able to call for help.

With this information, JMR or Juneau mountain rescue and brette discuss options and agreed that if they didn’t hear from the men the next day, a search team would be deployed to see if they could locate Marc and Ryan’s skis.

If they found the skis, this would indicate that Marc and Ryan were somewhere on the mountain still, or if they didn’t find the skis, then Marc and Ryan had made it off. If nothing else, this would indicate where to search next.

Unfortunately, the next day with still not word from either Ryan or Marc, a search team set out and found the skis exactly where the pair had left them. A Sitka based coast guard helicopter would be flying over the towers and using infrared camera technology to try to find any signs of body heat, and therefore Marc and Ryan’s location. (side note, the two episodes we’ve had so far about water rescues - episode 15 and 46 were both from this same base).

This initial search produced negative results meaning they didn’t find any body head using the infrared camera.

When this information was relayed to Brette, she panicked and thought that they were done searching and that’s all they would do. So she started working on creating her own search team and booked a flight to Juneau.

When she got there on March 10, she learned that this wasn’t the case. The coast guard had continued to search for signs of Marc and Ryan but, due to poor weather conditions, the search had to be postponed for 4 days.

But friends and family, climbing partners and athlete managers of both Ryan and Marc were all showing up in Juneau, all trying to figure out how to help.

To try to put together a timeline, search and rescue asked for times that people had received calls or texts from Marc or Ryan.

The best timeline they could start with was from when Marc had text Brette, at 10:26am that he was at the summit. Over an hour later, he had text his mother but everyone knew that Marc and Ryan wouldn’t have stayed at the summit this long.

From this information they were able to put together that if Ryan and Marc started going down the same way they came up, they would have lost cell service immediately, indicating that they found a different route down the mountain.

As it happens often with search and rescue, there’s a lot of urgency coupled with the facts that sometimes you have to sit and wait for the right conditions.

So that is what happens here: everyone came together, created a timeline, used maps for references, created a plan, and then had to sit and wait as a storm blew through the area.

Finally, on March 13, search and rescue was given the go ahead to start searching again. More than 4 feet of snow had fallen in the past week so everyone was ready to get a move on and find these guys.

At the summit, a Blackhawk helicopter hovered enough for one of the members to notice a pair of foot prints. Then they found a second set. The prints were nearly filled in with snow, and almost impossible to see.

They got Lucky, though, and were able to follow the shallow but distinct footfall pattern as they made their way along the ridge.

They followed the prints, which would travel along the ridge, heading east toward the 4th, 5th, 6th and 7th towers.

So, jmr had to kind of assume that these were the prints belonging to Marc and Ryan, they hadn’t received word of anyone else who was missing and they also didn’t know anyone else who might have been climbing. Still there was a chance that these footprints belonged to a different set of climbers, who potentially safely got off of the mountain and returned home.

As they followed the ridge, and approached the convergence of 4th tower and main tower, the footprints suddenly ended where a gully began.

This gully would lead 1,000 feet or 305 m down from the ridge to a bergshrund crevasse, which is where a crevasse forms from a glacier pulling away from the rocky base or wall of a mountain. At the top of the gully a small piece of black and white paracord was dangling.

Rescue groups felt confident at this point that they had found Marc and Ryan’s decent route. They just needed to find the men.

The Blackhawk helicopter they were in was a great option for doing initial information collecting, but to follow the gully down and search closer to the mountains, they would need something different.

Switching to an AStar helicopter, which is smaller and more agile, they were able to get much closer. This helicopter had a recco detector on board, which would allow the members of the flight team to pick up signals from electronics or metal.

As they searched, they would report to a second helicopter that was hovering nearby with Brette and Sam Johnson, Ryan’s best friend, inside.

As the AStar approached the bergschrund crevasse, a section of orange rope could be seen. It was stretched tight as if anchored on each end. 15 feet beneath the rope, the Recco detector light up, letting them know that two individuals were buried beneath the snow.

No one needed confirmation, everyone knew that if they followed the rope they would find Marc at one end and Ryan on the other.

Initially, Brette and Sam wanted to rappel the same decent to find their loved ones, but after speaking with search and rescue it was decided it would be too dangerous.

The discovery is likely the result of an avalanche, or potentially a collapsing snow, cornice or collapsing, ice, and rock. Of course you can never rule out human error, where one made a mistake in their anchor system, or someone failed to put a knot at the end of their rope to prevent them from going straight off the end.

But, while having rappelling fatalities is a common occurrence, having two perish at the same time is extremely rare. Due to this, combined with the fact the men are buried in debris, everyone feels safe assuming that an avalanche, rock fall or collapse of nature occurred and ripped them men from where they stood.

For months after there were small efforts to recover Marc and Ryan from their resting place, each time finding that the location of their bodies would require passing treacherous terrain, and no matter what direction they tried to take, it was deemed too dangerous not only to reach the men, but also remove them.

From the sounds of it, Marc and Ryan wouldn’t have wanted to leave the mountain anyways.

The efforts made to find Marc and Ryan were significantly larger than I can explain. Juneau mountain rescue, while leading the search, had assistance from the US coast guard, Alaska State Troopers, Alaska army national guard, Alaska incident management team, south east Alaska dogs organized for ground search, coastal helicopters, Northstar trekking, and Alaska search and rescue dogs.

Ryan had a wild streak and before he became a father he could often be found chain smoking cigarettes while sitting in his tent. He was born in Juneau and loved his hometown and was particularly drawn to the Mendenhall towers.

Ryan, growing up in Juneau meant that he had explored and became familiar with the Mendenhall towers and frequently visited them for climbing, hiking, and skiing activities, both alone and with friends.

Early in his adolescence and adulthood, Ryan loved to explore and sought out adventure every chance he could. Once graduating from high school, he fed into that desire and climbed in Yosemite, the Canadian Rockies, the cascade mountains, the southwestern deserts of the United States, and going abroad to the himalayas, Nepal, Tibet, Kyrgyzstan (cure gah Ston) and of course, all over Alaska.

In 2005, he and his climbing partner Stefan Ricci (richy) climbed the Cassin (cass (like Cassidy) in) Ridge on Denali, which is 9,000 feet, or 2745 meters. To make that more digestible, that’s 1.75 miles or 2.8 km of vertical climbing.

Ryan was the type of person to always cheer others on, and never paid attention to any route that he made first scents on. He was happy and vibrant and lived life as fast as he could.

But he also had a head on his shoulders. After graduation from the university of Montana, he returned to Juneau and really began to make a name for himself in the local climbing community.

Ryan was also very active in the mountaineering activities around Juneau. He actually assisted 4 Juneau mountain rescue members out of a sticky situation when they got stuck on a ridge during a storm in 2015.

Also 2015, when Ryan’s son, Milo, was born, Ryan had a bit of a rebirth too. He loved being a father and started really taking a look at his life and how what he did impacted his son. He aimed to be someone his son could look up to, learn from, and as many parents can relate, be someone to show their kiddo the way by example, not just words.

In other words, he tried to live out loud, and show his son that anything was possible, rather than just telling him he could be president.

With Milo, thought, Ryan settled down, calculated risk more often and took on work selling packages to tourists on princess cruise lines.

One day, while climbing on Denali he had an idea that began to take shape, And he decided to open Tongass CrossFit.

Ryan is said to be one of the best climbers in Alaska and absolutely among the best in North America.

Ryan was the one who set many of the routes up the Mendenhall towers, and had already been to the summit of the main tower by the South buttress direct route.

In February of 2018, Ryan and his best friend, Sam, had won the American alpine club cutting edge award. This award is a grant that helps to fund expeditions, depending on the cost of the expedition and how much money is available will determine how much someone receives. Usually between 5,000 and 15,000 dollars.

The grant is to help support small teams who are chasing big goals like those of difficult routes, first ascents and similar goals. The grant is sponsored by black diamond equipment.

Marc Andre LeClerc was born on October 10, 1992, in Nanaimo (noo nai moe), British Columbia in Canada. His mothers name is Michelle and his father‘s name is serge leclerc.

Marc had two sisters, Brigid-Anne dunning who was older, and Kellyn kavanagh who was younger.

While Marc didn’t start climbing until years later, at 4 years old he could rattle off how tall the formidable mountains were, including Everest, and he could name the adventures of Edmund Hilary and Tenzing Norgay, Hilary being a mountaineer and norgay was his Sherpa, being known for the first to reach the summit of Everest.

Marc’s father was an active outdoorsman and took him on trips to go camping and hiking and Marc was thrilled to be out there.

Marc was introduced to climbing at eight years old when his grandfather gifted him a book called quest for adventure, but didn’t start climbing until the following year when he was nine, and he quickly became known for his solo climbs on rock and ice and the combination of the two.

The first experience that Marc had with climbing was at a shopping mall where they had an indoor climbing gym, but he would pretty quickly join a gym called project climbing. It seemed that Marc energy was able to be channeled while he climbed, and it was the only place he seemed to settle down.

Things didn’t really start taking off until 2005 when his family moved to Agassiz which is near the Cascade range and it was here that Marc began teaching himself how to rock climb.

To get to the climbing locations, he was often riding his bike out to an area called Harrison buffs in order to climb, and he would often spend the night here by himself.

Here, Marc joined the British Columbia mountaineering club and started competing in rock climbing. He very quickly began winning age group competitions, and then would go on to win the Canadian nationals in 2005.

Marc was usually competing against boys who were older than him, but he realized that competition wasn’t something he enjoyed and asked to be pulled from the team at 14.

To save money to be able to afford old and used rock and ice climbing gear, Marc began to work in construction with his father.

The gear he bought was really old, like some items were 60 years old. But Marc would use and learn with these items.

By the time he was coming out of high school he had climbed multiple pitches and learned to ice climb. Getting places by hitchhiking, then spending much of his time climbing alone really gave Marc the lessons in problem solving that would take him to great places.

To celebrate, in a way, his own graduation in 2009, he soloed the 6,903 foot or 2104 meter north face of cheam peak.

When he wasn’t in the mountains climbing or working, Marc was often found practicing laying and building anchors while at home, or outside practicing his ice climbing by climbing up telephone poles.

In 2012 Marc met Brette (Prounouced like Britt) Harrington And they became a popular duo in the climbing community. Despite his clear adoration with Brette, Marc still felt most at home on a mountain but brette echoed this feeling.

In 2013 he made the first free ascent of the temptation of Saint Anthony located in Squamish British Columbia Canada.

Also in 2013, Marc broke Alex Honnold's time to climb up the grand wall, stawamus chief which is a granite dome in Squamish that is 2,300 feet or 700 m in elevation. The grand wall is just part of this climb.

Alex honnold is arguably one of the best climbers of our life time and reporters have mentioned that when it comes to Alex that he does so many incredible things that they have to basically pick and choose what they report on because otherwise it’s too much.

I need to say that again, Alex honnold sets so many records that the media can’t keep up. Keep that in mind.

So the grand wall is about 1,000 feet or 308 meters and Alex honnold had climbed this route, setting a speed record of 59 minutes in 2011.

When Marc came to the grand wall in 2013, the idea of beating Alex’s time was on his mind, but not really something he set out to beat, until he was in the later section of the climb and he realized he could at least match the record.

The climb, to that point had gone really smooth, so Marc decided to challenge himself, and ended up completing the climb in 57 minutes, shaving off 2 minutes from Alex’s time.

So of course, theoretically speaking i think ego and success go hand in hand. It’s really hard to become just this insanely great person without having some ego at play and without having some sort of superiority complex.

Like, you have to believe you’re capable of more than the average human to be able to achieve more than the average human. How you let that complex and ego run your life is where I believe problems occur.

I digress- Alex heard about Marc breaking his record, and had a moment where he kind of when no- that is mine. So Alex goes back, and sets himself into a class all on his own, and completes the climb in 38 minutes.

In 2014 Marc then free Solo climbed the Trimble link up of East pillar direct of Mount Slesse, in the Cascade range. This took him 12 hours and 4 minutes and Marc still holds the fastest known time today.

Also, quick insert, if you don’t know what free soloing is, it’s where to climb without ropes or protective gear.

On February 21, 2015, Marc had gone to Argentine Patagonia and completed his first solo ascent of the corkscrew on cerro torre. This route is known to be one of the hardest routes to solo climb, and that’s not even considering that this was his seventh solo climb ever. While he was here, he also made the first ascent up the reverse Torre Traverse.

The corkscrew route is 4,000 feet or 1220 meters of exposed ice and rock.

Later in the same year, Marc would complete the second known free Solo ascent of the tomahawk on aguja standhart in Patagonia.

He then concluded this monstrous climbing year by completing a free ascent of the Muir wall on El Capitan in Yosemite national Park

In 2016, Marc moved into his mothers attic when the media got word of him, and started reaching out to see about interviews. And what would become the Netflix film, the alpinist. Marc, don’t seem to care about what the media wanted from him, and more glad to have someone there to belay him while he climbed.

He made the first ascent up the north east face of Mount Tuzo in the Canadian Rockies

2016 He also made the first solo winter ascent of the 12,972 feet or 3954 m Emperor face in Mount Robson in Canada. Here Marc got a huge lesson in problem solving when he was forced to stay the night at the summit due to poor weather moving in. He first spilled water on himself when trying to boil some snow, his headlamp batteries died, and then he dropped his lighter and couldn’t find it- meaning he had no way to melt snow for water or heat up his freeze dried food.

Brette and Marc established a new climb called the hidden Dragon on the Chinese puzzle wall. Despite its name, the Chinese puzzle wall is on the west side of illusion peak located in the north cascades of British Columbia.

Then in 2017, marc Free Soloed ha ling peak on Mount Lawrence grassi, where he combined 3 routes rated 5.7 or higher and then he made the first free solo ascents of rim wall and echo canyon in the Canadian Rockies.

In 2018 Marc climbed Mount sesse in the cascade range again, this time nabbing the first free solo in winter and also claiming the second winter ascent.