Mount Thor, Canada
Imagine Yosemite’s Half Dome, but taller, more vertical, and far more remote, rising like an upturned fang above a frozen valley sixteen degrees north of the Arctic Circle. That’s Mount Thor, on Canada’s Baffin Island. Imposing, terrifying, and beautiful, the 5,495-foot mountain boasts the world’s tallest vertical rock face and holds a powerful attraction for climbers comfortable with extreme, well, everything.
• To the Indigenous Inuit, Mount Thor is called Kigutinnguaq, which means, as you might imagine, “tooth-like.” As with Half Dome in Yosemite, the peak was carved by an ancient glacier as it slid past over eons, scooping out a trough below, now called Weasel Valley.
• Mount Thor’s west face is a dizzying 1,250 meters, or 4,100 feet from top to bottom. It’s actually beyond vertical, with an average angle of 105 degrees. If you were to stand on the top of Thor and toss a bowling ball into the air (please don’t do that) it would
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