JoshK Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 Climb: Mount Buckner-North Face Up, North Face Coulior Ski Down Date of Climb: 4/29/2004 Trip Report: I figured i would jot this up while I am anxiously waiting for my pictures to download. Sky (skikilo) and I climbed the north face of buckner today and skied the north face coulior. This was the follow-up trip to a failure last thursday where we made it to within 600vf of the summit climbing the coulior and turned around due to high avalanche hazard. We were able to ski the majority of the coulior that trip, but we wanted to come back and nail it right. We left the car right around midnight and approached via cascade pass/salahe arm. I am now of the opinion that this is the best approach for the upper boston basin area when things are snow covered. The skin to cascade pass and up the arm is super easy and it is quite easy to contour around into boston basin. By the time we had reached the 8500 foot notch leading to the Boston glacier the sun had just started to shine. It was probably around 6am. A surprisingly not-that-bad ski down the boston glacier found us at the base of the north face not too much later. You are probably wondering why we chose to go up the NF instead of the NFC, eh? The schrund on the NFC straight up sucks. It runs side to side and we passed it last time on a very sketchy bridge that collapsed when I followed Sky across and had to scramble up the other side with him pulling hard on the rope. Not wanting to deal with that crap, we figured going up the face would be easier. We reached the summit sometime around 10am and realized we would have to wait a while for things to soften up. We took a nap until 12:30 and then started to work our way down the coulior. The top of the coulior (which is actually just the north face), is quite steep. Sky could probably estimate better than I, but it's steeper than the standard north face proper. This continues for probably 500vf and then you begin to neck down into the coulior proper. The coulior gets quite thin (maybe 40ft?) for a hundred feet or so then begins to slowly open up. Starting at the constriction we started to find fairly good snow...chunky powder. The ski down from that point was great, with a little bit of shitty ice here and there to keep things *very* interesting. Beneath the shrund (which can easily be shot across on skis) we found picture perfect powder for the last few hundred feet down to the flat part of the glacier. Too bad we didn't have that on the whole mountain. The skin back up to the 8500 foot notch went quickly and soon we were skiing down the quien sabe and the sahale arm, which was fast and fun with perfect corn. 18 hours and a little bit of driving later we were chowing down at Good Food in marble mountain Gear Notes: Skis, skins,2 whippets, crampons. Needed all this. Approach Notes: Road gated at MP21. Snow starts at MP22.5. Skin up to cascade pass and up arm very easy. Quote
JoshK Posted April 30, 2004 Author Posted April 30, 2004 Stupid bulk upload...ok, only one uploaded ok, so here is that one for now... http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/plab/showphoto.php?photo=4620&size=big&password=&sort=1&cat=503 Quote
cracked Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 Which notch did you guys take over Boston? The same one that Sky, Ross and Corey took, or did you use the summer approach of traversing high on Boston? Quote
JoshK Posted April 30, 2004 Author Posted April 30, 2004 We took the same one they took before, which is also the one we used last week. I think it's the best way over to the boston glacier by far Quote
skykilo Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 I gotta say thanks to Josh for being another knucklehead willing to grind. That's a proper one day push. Based on steeps and aesthetics, this may be the sweetest line I've skied to date. I can't begin to describe how stoked I am. Quote
JoshK Posted April 30, 2004 Author Posted April 30, 2004 And I gotta say thanks to Sky for putting up with a gaper steeps skier! This was definitely one of my top 5 moutain adventures ever! Quote
AllYouCanEat Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 And I gotta say thanks to Sky for putting up with a gaper steeps skier! This was definitely one of my top 5 moutain adventures ever! Hey, we're all gapers on our first steeps. There is definately no comparisions at the ski resorts...except utah, I hear that place rocks. Quote
Paco Posted April 30, 2004 Posted April 30, 2004 Way to get after it Josh! I need to get off my lazy ass and do something in the mountains. It's been too long. Quote
fourteenfour Posted March 9, 2015 Posted March 9, 2015 nice! I need to ski it next time apparently. Quote
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