Eleven months ago we made a monumental botch of an ascent of this same peak. We pushed on to salvage our trip, but clearly these mountains had gotten the better of us. This past weekend we once again found ourselves dwarfed by 3,000 feet of interminable talus. This time we nailed the approach, walking first in our shoes over firm snow, then booting up 30-35 degree firm snow with alpenstocks in hand. Finally we gained a talus ridge and switched back to shoes. From here we accended and traversed 3rd-4th class snowy, loose, semi-frozen-in-place talus to the start of our intended descent. Things had gone so well at this point that we figured we would descend the 3,000 ft couloir in about 10 minutes then skin further up canyon and explore. I dumped out most of my water, confident we would be at the creek shortly.
Our slope began at about 45 degrees and
appeared soft. We were suspicious that an inch
of wind deposited snow cloaked a uniform surface of frozen spring snow. After I was unable to start, Ty gave it a shot. It was immediatly apparent that the slope was a no-go due to ice. Ty executed two hairball traverses while self belyaing with an ice ax, and one houdini kick turn with liberal aid from a horn of rock to deposit himself "safely" back on the rocks next to the couloir. We both down climbed rock for about 300 feet until the angle was less then 40 degrees and began our icy decent with axes handy.
In this shot, I'm perched safely on a rock as Ty gingerly holds an edge with over 2,000 feet to go. Clearly visible is the inch of wind deposit and the underlying ice. Still a long slide.
Ty finishes up the first half. Notice the complete lack of tracks...ice axe still in hand. From when we began our descent to this point was well over an hour of very tedious skiing.
In these final two photos, Mike traverses hard left to bypass the waterfall! We found a continuous snow passage and for the final 1,000 feet we were totally in the clear... 30 degree slopes with perfect corn welcomed us through the final rock lined chute and on to the trail.
These mountains contain a lifetime of big ski lines. Photos like this ensure we'll be back.
