Rastus Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 Planning on making my way up this one soon. Is Beckey's description of the northwest couloir pretty accurate or is there anything else I should know? I'm planning on bringing a 30m rope for rappels but that's about it. Any beta will be appreciated! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
klenke Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 I soloed this route about 10 years ago so my memory of details is a bit sketchy, but this is what I remember: The approach from Peggy's Pond shown in (old Brown) Beckey is spot on. There is a scree/talus ledge that one can use to access the couloir, which is really just a gully--one of several parallel gullies on that side. The gully was not the easiest thing for me to keep inside of (I probably didn't have the route description in hand at the time) and I almost wound up doing a squeeze crawl left through a tunnel because I remembered something about turning left and there being a chimney. In crawling through the tunnel, I knew I couldn't take my pack with me on my back. Taking it off, I tried to hook it on a rock horn but missed and the thing slides off around the corner and out of sight down scree. I looked around the corner and my pack was nowhere in sight? Where had it gone? Giving up on that for the moment (I resolved to search for it after the climb), I continued up. Fortunately, I had taken my camera out of my pack. I backed out of that tunnel convinced it was the wrong way and continued up instead. I soon came upon an 8-ft step in a constriction with chockstones above. I finally knew I was on route when I found an aid sling here to haul myself up the step. After that it was just more scrambling to the top. I downclimbed the gully past the constriction then commenced searching for my pack. No rappeling done (I didn't have any gear anyway). It turns out my pack somehow managed to traverse two gullies over to the left. To this day I'm amazed that happened. It was resting precariously on loose scree about ten feet from a pronounced drop off. My binoculars inside were askew. To add insult to the shenanigans, I realized later, upon returning to camp, that there was no film in my camera at the time, so all photographs I took were blanks. From Peggy's Pond, it probably took me an hour to get up (give or take 10 minutes or so) and about the same to get down (because I had to search for my pack). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CascadeClimber Posted July 7, 2004 Share Posted July 7, 2004 The standard south side route is 4th or low 5th and relatively solid where it needs to be. I'm a punter and downclimbed it with minimal issue. In general, it's a choss heap, but the view is nice from the top. Don't know about the NW Couloir- we went up the East Buttress. -L Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rastus Posted July 7, 2004 Author Share Posted July 7, 2004 Thanks for the story and beta. It definitely sounds like one chossy bastard. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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