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Baker: North Ridge and Coleman Headwall


Dima

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O.k. dumb me. But you could have Wi4-5 on rock when it gets thin smirk.gif

 

Yes, June is a bit yearly this year. But I need to get some in before heading to Peru in July. We will wait and see.

 

Overall, it will be good for me as I do not have a ton of expreience on AI. As long as I won't need the skis on the trail and a showel on the route.

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But the route will suck in June this year. I'd make other plans.

 

Some large icefall climbs like the Coleman Headwall are only doable early season. How many August or September ascents of routes like the Coleman Headwall or Klicitat Icefall do you hear about? I've seen photos of the headwall in late season and it looked SCARY.

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But the route will suck in June this year. I'd make other plans.

 

Some large icefall climbs like the Coleman Headwall are only doable early season. How many August or September ascents of routes like the Coleman Headwall or Klicitat Icefall do you hear about? I've seen photos of the headwall in late season and it looked SCARY.

 

actually there can be really good hard* ice on the coleman headwall in late sept or oct. wave.gif and its much easier to get to than the n ridge at that time of year.

 

*Hard in character - as in water ice not neve - not hard in grade like WI5+R tongue.gif

Edited by Dru
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Dima, the picture is from the NR in June 2001. The line we took was a few hundred feet climbers right of the usual line. It was about 80 feet of AI4-ish. As dru said, the normal line is a lot less steep. We thought it looked like fun to go straight up.

 

Snow conditions sucked for us b/c it snowed above 6000' a couple days before and we had a hot day. Lots of post-holing, and the Coleman headwall avied in the afternoon.

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But the route will suck in June this year. I'd make other plans.

 

Some large icefall climbs like the Coleman Headwall are only doable early season. How many August or September ascents of routes like the Coleman Headwall or Klicitat Icefall do you hear about? I've seen photos of the headwall in late season and it looked SCARY.

 

I believe the relatively low number of ascents later in the summer is more due to the Coleman opening up and making life difficult than the climbing on the headwall proper.

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I was there last end of September / beginning of October, and watched two teams of friends climb the Coleman Headwall. They reported dinner-plating ice but solid all the way. It looked way cool, and I'm planning on it for this fall.

My team tried the North Ridge, and after three attempts we couldn't find a way around the bergschrunds one the ridge proper, and had to retreat...

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