Joffre Couloir TR

[jimmyleg66]

Hiked in Friday afternoon carrying a tent, but passing hikers on their way out said the hut was empty. So instead of camping and fighting off mosquitoes somewhere on the East Ridge, we stayed at the hut. However we weren't totally alone as evidenced buy something small, furry and four legged, that ran across Kevin's back sometime in the night. We were out the door the next morning at 4:50am. Despite the good approach photos from Alpine Select we still managed to traverse off the East Ridge too high and end up downclimbing the buttress before the glacial cirque. Then again climbed too high on the left of the glacier and into the midst of several of the only open crevasses. The guidebook says that the bergschrund can be troublesome but we didn't find one, only a huge pile of ice debris and a 20' vertical wall of snow/ice blocking access to the route. I guess maybe the lower wall of the 'schrund calved off? Either way it was beyond our abilities and single mountaineering axes. So being the Mark Twight wannabees that we are, we climbed the rock to the right in our crampons until high enough to access the snowslope from a nice wide ledge. It took two short pitches(due to rope drag)up from the glacier. Probably could have climbed a more direct route up the rock, without crampons, in a single pitch, but we were having fun and wanted to give it a try as neither of us had done it before. Once in the couloir the climbing was fun and straightforward. The snow varied from a little too soft to just perfect. We had 3 pickets and simulclimbed until there was two remaining, setting up 4 belays in total. I only measured the slope angle near the top, which was 58 degrees. It might have been a bit steeper in spots but it averaged around there. At the top there was an easy exit up the rock on the right of the couloir, probably 4th class, but we were beat and protected it up to a flat spot. From there its up a snowslope and an easy ridgewalk to the east summit. Followed the normal route down to the hut with some fun bootskiing along the way. Total time hut to hut was 11 hours. Amazingly had the hut to ourselves again that night. There had to be 10-12 people who pitched tents around the hut and another 12-14 camped up on the ridge.

[fern]

I think we ran into you at the campsite on the ridge on your

way down. An abnormally tall fellow and a short girl. Bad

weather on Saturday night and Sunday morning sent almost

all those partys packing without climbing anything on

Sunday, too bad.

 

We climbed some other stuff and never had to share a summit

in 3 days. That's a fun area, and still in pretty

good condition, lots of snow lingering.

[jimmyleg66]

Hey Fern,

Wow, my first cc.com'er chance meeting... almost. So was that you my partner stopped beside to take some pictures?

 

Yeah I was suprised at the snow depth and definitely appreciated the easy descent it provided.

 

I knew the area was popular but was pretty suprised to see all those people! Do you know if they were all together?

[fern]

I think both of you talked to Stefan ... you headed down

pretty much the same time I got to camp.

 

there was about 9 people from the BCMC there to climb Matier.

Most headed down Sunday morning. 3 stayed and climbed Joffre

on Monday instead.