Trip: Colonial Peak - "Split Shot" Right Ice Flow (New?)
Date: 1/25/2009
Trip Report:Alright, it’s been a very long time since I’ve posted a trip report here, but I figure this adventure is kinda worthy of a writeup. Let me know if you disagree.
Back in the old days, when Lara was still relentlessly prodding us all to maximize our potential for Alpinism, she suddenly became fixated on the following photograph of the N. Face of Colonial Peak:
Wide Picture of Colonial with Lines It came from a message thread forwarded by Roger Strong, and as far as I can tell the photo was taken by Charles Claassen in early December, 2005. The thread supposed that a (new?) line could be driven up one of the two obvious ice flows to the right of the summit. A number of other people were involved in the thread, including Andreas Schmidt and John Frieh, but as far as I know only one thing came of it. Lara, Chad and I went up to check out the right-hand line later that month (mid-Dec. 2005). We had a heck of a lot of fun – one short mixed pitch at the bottom of the gully where Colonial Creek forms at the base of the lower cliff bands, then tons of rambly ice. We got up to about 5400’, and realized we were running out of daylight, so we had to turn back (which involved a couple rappels down the gully). We were hoping to at least get a closer look at the phatness above, but it never really came into view.
Fast forward to Jan. 24, 2009, 11:30 pm. Every time this pineapple-express-followed-by-high-pressure-inversion cycle comes along, I think about the N. Face of Colonial. When Forrest and I did Watusi Rodeo back in 2000, it was after a similar cycle, with its telltale avalanche ravaging in the Colonial basin, although there was a lot more new snow piled up on the face then. And oh, I know I’m not the only one… clearly Colin and Marko were thinking along the same lines when they fired Watusi a week earlier. Now, Chad and I figured the time was right to finish what we started back in 2005, sadly without Lara.
After capturing a maximum of 2 hours of sleep, my girlfriend woke me up when she came home from the bar. Time to get going! Since I was already packed and ready go to, I watched CSI Miami for a few minutes before Chad arrived. We loaded his crap into my car and headed north with glee. We arrived at the Colonial Creek campground pullout at about 3:00 am, dorked with our gear and loaded ourselves with calories in the warm interior of the car for an hour and a half, and finally set off up the road in the LED-perforated darkness of 4:30. We found old snowshoe tracks quickly – Colin and Mark? – and followed them up into the basin after donning crampons only minutes from the road, which were definitely the correct footwear. Arriving in the basin at 5:45, more quickly than we anticipated, forced us to stop for a half hour to wait for light, and we cooled off very quickly. Oh yeah, it was cold!
When the light finally allowed, we trod through the copious avalanche debris, finding Colin & Mark’s bivi platform along the way. We headed for the same gully we’d gone up in 2005 (which is far to the right of where Forrest and I had ascended the lower cliff apron back in 2000), and found that the first mixed pitch and all of the rambly ice in the gully were completely covered by firm snow! That made travel very easy, and we ascended to our previous high point by about 9:30. We were puzzled to still be following tracks though… had Colin and Mark gone up this way? It seemed as though they were going too high on the right side of the mountain to be lined up correctly for Watusi…
Then we met Nate and [IForgetHisNameBecauseISuck] from Portland. We had a brief but friendly conversation. They were coming down from their bivi, where they had hoped to be in position to do Watusi that morning. But alas, the inch or two of snowfall that happened overnight, combined with some wind loading of leeward slopes and the obvious avalanche destruction apparent throughout the valley caused them to reevaluate their plans and instead make a quick exit. I must say here that while I firmly believe that the avalanche conditions were actually very favorable at the time and neither Chad nor I were the least bit swayed towards abandoning our ascent by their assessment, we both agreed that neither they, nor anyone else, should be criticized for erring on the side of safety when it comes to avalanches.
We reached the first big ice flow at about 11:00. It was not as steep as we expected. It was about 60 meters in length and we soloed it, but it was near the edge of what I felt comfortable soloing – perhaps WI3+? There was a lot of variety in ice quality – some Styrofoam, some solid plastic ice, some a bit dinner-platey. Mostly good if we chose the right line, and there was plenty of line to choose from on the formation!
Above the first flow, there was some more 50-60 deg. slogging, and then we came to the second flow, this one much steeper.
Chad set out on the sharp end of the newly-produced rope. He found much difficulty and mental anguish above. Over a period of about 2 hours, he hemmed and hawed and went back and forth and placed many screws but finally, through sheer persistence, triumphed, exiting through a steep groove on the upper left of the flow. It was solid 4+ if not 5 in difficulty.
He ran the remaining 20m of the 70m rope out to find a belay, and I followed with many a screamin’ barfy. The final pitch of consequence was not as steep, but it had a few mixed moves with some delicate verglas climbing. We reached the ridgeline by 3:30, disappointingly already in the shade.
We definitely had time to ditch our stuff and go tag the summit, which took about an hour (roughly 800’ vertical, mostly steep but easy snow). From there we could peer down on the N Face proper and I could relive the final harrowing pitches of Watusi Rodeo, still burning in my mind.
The descent was picturesque with the sunset...
...but would have been nicer if we’d had more light. The light disappeared when we were about halfway down between the ridge and the basin. We knew we had to angle way around to the skier’s left to avoid cliff bands, but after dark it was unclear exactly how much skier’s left. We had to do a bit of steep downclimbing and once we had to climb back up a couple hundred feet to get around a cliffy section. As we were descending, we noticed a light in the basin, and when we finally got down there at about 7:00 we moseyed across the debris to a tent, where [IForgetHisNameBecauseISuck2] and [IForgetHisNameBecauseISuck3], also from Portland, were brewing up. They were entertained to hear that Nate and [IForgetHisNameBecauseISuck] had bailed. They very thoughtfully provided us with some warm water, thank you!
Well, after that it was a pretty straightforward dash back to the car, lots of footprints to follow. I was surprised to see that much traffic in the valley… But apparently lots of people have their eyes on Colonial, and for good reason - it’s a very impressive mountain with excellent winter climbing and a surprisingly easy approach.
The route we did was the rightmost line marked in
this picture (yellow dashed line). Chad came up with the name "Split Shot". Overall, a very fine route, but definitely not as difficult as Watusi. In these conditions at least, it rivals some classic shorter ice routes in the Rockies, albeit with a bunch more approach & descent than most short routes there!
To see more pictures,
go here for the full gallery.
Previous Topic
Index