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Ponzini

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Posts posted by Ponzini

  1. Straight up from the road looks real bushy for at least the first 1000 feet, and further than that after the snow leaves, and there looks to be some greasy slabs to boot.

     

    There's still lots of snow from 4000 ft upwards but only minor patches on the ridge, the east face is still fairly snowy.

     

    The other climber was Mr. Derrick Johnstone. I'll bet that that the companion NE ridge is waiting for a first ascent, one could reach it from the road (bushy), Pierce Lake (long) or by rapping from the col between the two Crossover peaks to the small glacier to the N and hiking down to the ridge toe, which looked fairly easy.

  2. Climb: Crossover - SE Ridge of East Summit

     

    Date of Climb: 5/21/2006

     

    Trip Report:

    We were looking for a close yet obscure summit, and decided on Crossover. We decided to make a direct attack from Nesakwatch Creek instead of hike the lengthy Pierce Lake trail. As we forgot the camera, I stole some pictures to illustrate our route.

     

    This shot, by Greg Jones, shows the true summit of Crossover on the right and the slightly lower eastern summit on the left.

    5362Crossover_Greg_Jones-med.jpg

     

    We walked the road to the Slesse memorial, and then headed up the righthand side of the great slide track off the NE side of Slesse, giving the pocket glaciers a wide berth. About 30% of the bypass glacier has broken off and gone over the edge, but everything else is in place (albeit precariously!)

     

    We climbed steeply through open forest and then snow to Crossover's east ridge. From there, the main peak looked like a tottering shitpile, while the east peak seemed like a sporting climb. We decided to give the SE ridge of the east peak a try.

     

    East face of east peak of Crossover from Nesakwatch Creek, photo by Jordop:

     

    5362Crossover_Jordan-med.jpg

     

    Our route was the left skyline. We climbed five 30m pitches with some simul-climbing, it was windy and hard to hear so we kept the pitches short. The climbing was mostly 4th class but with lots of small 5th class steps, and the rock was surprisingly clean and firm. The route is similar to the N Ridge of the N Nesakwatch spire, a bit shorter but harder and with more sustained climbing. There is less greenery, the crest is much sharper and the exposure is better. Plus the views across to the north side of Slesse are intense!

    All in all, I'd do this climb again before the N Spire, and I was surprised to not see it written up anywhere. Certainly a recommended route for a group looking for a moderade climb in a neat area, I'd say it was a PD+ (Derrick suggested AD-).

     

    The summit register had only one entry, Roy Mason and party from 1994, but there was no indication of the route they climbed, nor could we see any rap slings anywhere on the mountian. We downclimbed to the col between the east and west peak and made one short rappel to the snow (look for a blue cord), and the rains hit just as we were packing the rope. It was a fast but wet trip out to the truck.

     

     

     

    Gear Notes:

    Rope, slings, set of hexes

  3. Must one go all the way to the parking lot on the far side and come all the way back to their starting point to say they did the neve twice in a day? Or if I skied from elfin to glacier pikes, back to Opal cone, back to the pikes and then home via elfin can I say I did the neve four times in a day? smirk.gif

  4. People usually ski to the schrund on the NE face and boot it from there, but if the snow's good and you like the steeps, then take your skis up and give 'er! It's too steep to skin up, though. NE face is the best descent in my mind, it's a more continuous run than the E face. Plus more direct to the top.

  5. Usually. You might want an ice axe in addition to crampons given the hard snow conditions. It's best to camp on the neve below the NE face, climb it first thing in the am, come back and pack up camp, and head out the rubble creek trail.

  6. The north face of Tremor is an excellent ski, not to be missed... Traversing to NW couloir or NW face of Fissle from Whirlwind/Fissle col is fairly easy, and gives a nice spicy finish to the trip, the snow should be real solid. You gotta like steeps, though.

  7. There are some nice lower angled areas in the trees near the artist point parking area....but the problem is that with this much snow, you need steep terrain or you'll likely just bog down. I'm going out for some trailbreaking exercise around Seymour this weekend - save the steeps for next weekend

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