[TR] Monte Cristo Area- Columbia Peak, Kyes Peak, Monte Cristo Peak 4/11/2004

[JoshK]

Climb: Monte Cristo Area-Columbia Peak, Kyes Peak, Monte Cristo Peak

 

Date of Climb: 4/11/2004

 

Trip Report:

I had been back in Monte Cristo once before when I went backpacking up to Silver and Twin lakes. I was really taken with the area and thought it had some good potential due to it's steep terrain and relatively short distances between attractions.

 

I had never been up to Glacier Basin so I figured a little exploration on skis would be in order. In short this is an absolutely awesome area for ski touring, but I am pretty sure it has a short season. Due to the nature of the terrain I bet it wont be too good for skiing later in Spring.

 

Day 1: Attempt to Bike up Monte Cristo road, constantly getting on and off bike when I bog down in snow patchs. At about 1 1/4 miles, I get frustrated and chuck the bike in the woods and pray somebody will steal it. As luck would have it, after about another 1/2 mile of snow, the road is basically snow free the rest of the way to monte cristo.

 

I started up the glacier basin trail and left the trail and headed right up a slope as soon as the trail entered into the open. I was able to skin from this point up to the col (pass) between upper glacier basin (the wilmans glacier as beckey calls it) and the columba glacier. I think this is referred to as monte cristo pass, but I am not exactly sure. I eat lunch here then back track a few hundred meters and climb up to wilmans gap, which takes me down onto the '76 glacier. From here I make my way over to the west rib of Columbia and climb to the summit. No difficulties aside from a few somewhat sketchy sections where there was only a few inches of snow left over rocks. A quick ski and skin gets me back to Wilmans gap and then down to Monte Cristo Pass. A Short, moderately steep ski over the Columbia glacier headwall (for lack of a better term) takes me down to the flats of the columbia glacier where I skin up to the south ridge of Kyes peak. I make my way up to about 6700 feet where I see what will make a great bivy site. I decide to call it a day here and save Kyes for tomorrow morning.

 

Day 2: After one of the best nights sleep I have had in a while, I skin up the remaining bit of the South ridge of Kyes and tag the summit. From here I ski a short ways down, rounding esst then north to get off the south ridge and onto the pride glacier as high as possible. I manage to get within about 100 feet of the large wall of Keys summit. I ski down the pride glacier (AWESOME ski!!) to about 5400 feet then skin up to the north col of monte cristo peak. From here I boot back up a steep coulior which gets me to about 100 feet of the monte cristo summit. Here was the crux of my trip. That summit block is pretty exposed and with ski boots on and bits of snow and rock I really took my time. The summit of this peak has awesome views. After booting back down from the summit and coulior I ski down Monte cristo's north col. another AWESOME ski! This takes me right into the top of glacier basin where I ski down and out. The flat section of glacier basin sucks and requires me to resort to some skinless skinning.

 

I guess spring is here, both Kyes and Columbia I found the summit registers on, which I haven't seen in a while. I was the first one to sign the register since september in both of them. On Columbia I accidentally signed it the 10th since I had no clue what day it was

 

Gear Notes:

Skis, skins, a light axe, very basic bivy gear

[JoshK]

P.S. I would be curious if anybody knows if any of this stuff was a first ski descent. I can't really imagine it was, but who knows. In particular I would be curious about the pride glacier and monte cristo's north col.

 

P.P.S Here is a map:

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4302&password=&sort=1&cat=500&page=1

 

Edited April 13, 2004 by JoshK

[klenke]

"skinless skinning." Oh, the horrors!

 

Nice job. Keep it up and you'll have nowhere else to go in the Cascades by the end of Spring.

[JoshK]

Nice job. Keep it up and you'll have nowhere else to go in the Cascades by the end of Spring.

 

Man, I think you, of anybody I know, are living proof that there are *never* too many places to see or mountains to climb!

[Skip_M._Kliphiem]

P.S. I would be curious if anybody knows if any of this stuff was a first ski descent. I can't really imagine it was, but who knows. In particular I would be curious about the pride glacier and monte cristo's north col.

 

Take a look at Lowell Skoog's The Alpenglow Ski Mountaineering History Project . Check out different areas under Chronology, get in touch with lowell.skoog@alpenglow.org , maybe get your name in the book.

[JoshK]

Here are some pictures. The links go to the big sized ones.

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4304&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500

 

This is Glacier basin from the approach. Monte Cristo Peak is in the center. The obvious "U notch" to the left of the peak is the one named "U notch" in Beckey's book. The small col just to the left of the main summit structure is the north col, where I came down.

 

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4306&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500

 

This is the upper pride glacier. You can see my lower tracks clearly and my upper tracks are hard to see, partially due to the large amount of slush I brought down with me.

 

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4305&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=500

 

Keys peak from Monte Cristo's summit. Getting up and down from this summit was definitely the sketchy crux of the trip.

 

[cracked]

[Blakej]

love your trip reports and photos man keep them coming.

[Dave_Schuldt]

A 5 star TR