[TR] South Early Winter Spire- SW Couloir and South Arete 4/29/2004

[goatboy]

Climb: South Early Winter Spire-SW Couloir and South Arete

 

Date of Climb: 4/29/2004

 

Trip Report:

Got up bright and early last Thursday and drove up to WA Pass drinking coffee, pre dawn. The early start really paid off in lovely sunrise light and crunchy, firm snow to walk on.

 

Parked at hairpin and booted up Spire Gully, pausing for this photo at the top:

 

 

Next, we traversed over to the base of the SW Couloir and it was still very firm, requiring several kicks to make a small platform for each step. Could have used crampons at this point, but chose not to.

 

Started climbing the Couloir and easily moved past the big chockstone at the bottom, which poses more of an obstacle later when the couloir melts out a bit more. Conditions in the couloir were excellent:

 

 

Soon, we were in the upper couloir and passing through several sections of rock -- fortunately, the loose scree was all frozen in place, and it was very easy to simply scramble over it all. The climbing at this point is more "interesting," but pretty easy and fun. Here, too, the snow changed into short sections of alpine ice, snow, intermittent frozen scree, ice, snow again . . . and so forth.

 

All too soon, the couloir terminates just below the summit, where a magnificent cornice overhangs the east face:

 

 

Above this point, it is an easy 5.0 rock move or two to gain the summit:

 

 

Views from the summit were awesome. I may be able to post more photos later.

 

We descended the S Arete, which was surprisingly snow-free for this early in the year. There were short, patchy sections of snow on some ledges, but nothing steep or sustained at all. Used rope to rappel the very bottom two pitches (the chimney and the first pitch off the ground). Standing/sitting glissaded all the way down spire gully.

 

Summary: What a nice little route. It's too short, but still excellent and fun. Descending the S Arete makes for a fun alpine outing. Beautiful day with good people in a fantastic part of the range.

 

Gear Notes:

1 Ice ax, 2 maybe useful but not necessary

1 skinny rope for rappels

Crampons not needed, but could have been useful

ski poles for approach

Skis (optional) for descent

 

Approach Notes:

Snow and big steps kicked all the way from Hairpin to top of Spire Gully

[Otto]

Thank you for posting this good report. It must have been a lovely day on good snow and rock. Fine pictures, too. Cheers!

[goatboy]

Thanks! It was a lovely day:

 

Kangaroo Ridge from SEWS Summit:

 

[SublimeSalamander]

14 May 04 The approach to the South Arête was pretty straight foreword. We approached from the trailhead parking lot not the hairpin turn. The approach trail was still covered by snow so we had to do a little bush whacking. The snow on the approach was hard boiler plate it the morning. But it softened up just enough in the afternoon for a nice glissade back to the tree line.

[fourteenfour]

SEWS in the spring. nice! I think I need to try this