[TR] Snoqualmie Mountain - New York Gully 03/16/2019

[PorterM]

Trip: Snoqualmie Mountain - New York Gully

Trip Date: 03/16/2019

Trip Report:

 

Lael and I climbed New York Gully yesterday on Snoqualmie Mtn. We had great conditions and were treated to warm temps and high quality ice. We left Bellingham around 5, left the car around 7 or so on skis. The approach was fairly straight forward once we found the right parking lot/skin track (which took a bit, below is a pic with the approach laid out and where to park.)

 

 

We left our skis on the ridge before dropping down to the north side of the mountain. The boot pack to the base of the route was slow and tiring as I post-holed about hip deep. We started up the route around 11, opting for the Direct NY Gully variation (mostly because we were so done with post-holing but also because there was another group right behind us and I was hoping this would space us out). Forecasts called for freezing levels around 6-7k so we expected any ice to be pretty rotten. It actually turned out to be pretty good! First pitch of the Direct variation was very high quality and quite fun. Only got one piece of gear but the climbing wasn't very hard. We then met up with the normal route and belayed there because the other team was a bit ahead of us. The next pitch was shorter, a left-hand traverse to another belay as we were moving a bit quicker than the team ahead of us.

They were very nice and then allowed us to pass at the base of the box gully. We had a 60m rope so I knew there would be some simuling and communicated such to Lael. I had 9 draws and led about 90m through the box gully to near the 5.8 crack. I had to run it out more than I'd like given that the climbing wasn't super easy.  It was a blast of a pitch though, the ice was good, the movement was fun and it was practically bolted with the pins in there. In fact, I don't think I placed more than a piece or two on the whole pitch, just clipped fixed pins.

Lael followed every pitch much faster than I lead them.  I topped out at a nice crack for a 3 piece belay from which we climbed about 40ft to the base of the 5.8 crack.

It wasn't as hard as it looked but conditions were in our favor. I traversed to the base and put in a #2 then racked my axes and took off my gloves since it was sunny and warm. I jammed up the crack, pulled on the old webbing around a chock block in the top, clipped a biner on that webbing, and just like that, the crack was done.

The difficulty didn't immediately ease though. I got out my axes and climbed some pretty steep turf and ice to a tree which I passed in favor of a rocky spine to belay off of. From here we traversed across a solar face with some pretty bad roller balls, so we simuled across to the trees where we unroped and headed for the skis, got there around 4:30 so we spent perhaps 4hrs or 4.5hrs on the route, in 6 pitches. The snow was atrocious from a whole day of sun and warmth but it still beat walking down! Had a great day of fun and hard climbing.

Gear Notes:
single rack from .4 to 3, 2 knife blades, 1 13cm screw (would have liked more), some nuts. 60m single.

Approach Notes:
Short, but a bit slow..

Edited March 18, 2019 by PorterM

[Marko]

Well done!  Careful, or you're gonna get hooked on those climbs back there...