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Slesse Conditions 2018


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May 13 2018.

Road is currently washed out at about 4 km, (passable by quad but not by regular 4x4 truck) so add on about 2 km of hiking to get to the trailhead.

Snow begins at the memorial.

Looks like lower part of North Couloir is melted out.

Pocket Glacier seems small this year. Big seracs below the east Face and Nav Wall.

Large cornice on the summit.

41376057554_4ea237d1cc_h.jpg

 

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So...if one were to climb the NE Butt when the Pocket Glacier is still there, what do you have to do wrt the PG?   Do you have to climb on top of the PG snow, just skedaddle below it, climb slowly and arduously below it, a combination of the above?

 

 

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45 minutes ago, chucK said:

Do you have to climb on top of the PG snow, just skedaddle below it, climb slowly and arduously below it, a combination of the above?

It really depends on how much is still there and how actively it is shedding blocks. And how bold you are!

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How bold I am decides whether I go for it or not.  Just wondered what is the nature of the exposure.  Racing across slabs dodging sliding blocks, or slow roped climbing waiting to be flossed off by sliding blocks, or climbing on top of something that might become a sliding block?   Which of these daring feats might be required?

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It can change pretty quickly so that's why most wait until it slides, since one person's experience one day doesn't often mean anything for someone else the next.  I know of many that have hiked up to turn around.  It is pretty sketchy until most of it goes.

Which is why August weekends are so busy on it!

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1 hour ago, chucK said:

How bold I am decides whether I go for it or not.  Just wondered what is the nature of the exposure.  Racing across slabs dodging sliding blocks, or slow roped climbing waiting to be flossed off by sliding blocks, or climbing on top of something that might become a sliding block?   Which of these daring feats might be required?

It could be all of the above. I was up there 3 weeks ago, falsely assuming that the pocket glaciers above the propeller cairn would be fine. They were not. Rexford/Nesakwatch zone was a fantastic alternate to being crushed to death. NE Butt is a good route, but certainly not good enough to warrant running below that stuff.

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So we went up last weekend and the glacier was still hanging in there. When we crossed it, it seemed to be quite stable, but like other have said it could change quite rapidly. Luckily when we went up the day before to check it out it was sort of overcast. The next day when we crossed it we got on it and across before the sun hit it, that meant a 2:00am wake up, 2:30am start from the parking. 

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On 7/26/2018 at 10:27 PM, keenwesh said:

The idea that the glacier is somehow stable at night is ludicrous.

Icefall frequency correlates well with temperature, especially for ice resting on rock. While it can happen at any time, it's most likely to occur at either the hottest part of the afternoon, or just as things radiation freeze overnight. Planning to cross when the risk is, not zero, but lowest, is a sensible precaution. Even if that reduction only corresponds to a 10% or 15% less chance of death...

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30 minutes ago, G-spotter said:

Even if that reduction only corresponds to a 10% or 15% less chance of death...

That's what I was wondering....how much less the risk in cooler weather.  Probably really hard to estimate without recording a bunch of video and tallying ice chunks by time of day/temp. over several years.  And I imagine it would be location specific since the angle of slope, rock type, etc. would factor in.

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Me and two of my buddies were almost taken out by a falling single car garage sized mushroom on the french route of Begguya that went at the coldest part of the night, dropped 100 ft right of us. 10 minutes later another released, fortunately it was small and broke up before washing over us. We bailed. When the sun hit nothing else came off, and there was so much hangfire up there.

The biggest serac release I've ever seen went off a few hours after sun left the face. Swept 3/4 of a mile with a 10 foot high wall on the leading edge. We crossed it 24 hours later, and belayed completely in the firing line for over an hour. Sure, maybe it's less likely to go in the middle of the night, but why? Slesse is such a mellow climb once the glacier goes, dance with death when it's unavoidable. 

 

Seracs cannot be reliably predicted, no matter what you and your undeveloped prefrontal cortex might think.

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14 hours ago, brionifitch said:

Any updates on the glacier conditions at Suh-LEE-see (just found out how to say it :D)?  Planning on climbing this next Monday....

no.

SLEH-see. or slYosi.

the South Coast Alpine Climbing FB group has up to the minute beta. latest news is there's  a 10 m ice chunk right above the start of the ramp and a couple other snow-to-rock and rock-to-slab transitions that are pretty gritty and slippery but it's getting done

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