Climb: Colchuck Peak-North Buttress Couloir
Date of Climb: 2/8/2004
Trip Report:
Climbed the North Buttress Couloir yesterday. After checking the weather and avy forecasts, i skied into the lake and broke trail for cc.comers Ade and Al? on Saturday. Slept for 15 hours. started up at 6:40 under a nice full moon. the wind was howling a little in the morning, but around 8 it stopped until i topped out. the couloir has some firm snow and some knee deep pow that is highly variable from one step to the next. anyways, the view from the top of the couloir was awesome.
i traversed out onto the NW face as some clouds engulfed me, helping to ease the exposure a bit. the NW face has some really deep pow(waist) and some spots where it's 4" over slopy granite. the most exciting part was when i topped out on the NW face and had to climb 50+ degree powder above the east face and finish with a mantle onto the summit plateau. nothing like a 5.nothing mantle with 2000' of exposure and no belay. the descent is really straightforward down to the Col, but the SW slopes felt different than the northern ones (windloaded?)
A fun route.
Gear Notes:
2 tools
helmet
crampons
pickets would be useless
a partner would be nice
Approach Notes:
there's a well beaten path all the way into the lake now, but flotation is probably still useful.