Anybody been to the Colchuck area lately?

[Chad_A]

I'd like to take my girlfriend up to do the NBC on Colchuck. Any idea on how much snow the area's had? I figure by mid-December, it should be sorted, but I'd like to go earlier if possible. If anyone has any input, please let me know. Thanks!

[Juan]

I'm thinking of the same thing this weekend. Forecast looks better on the east side. Have you received any responses? I'll bet the gully totally melted out, or nearly so, this summer. Would love to know if it has filled in yet.

 

Thanks,

 

John Sharp

[Chad_A]

No, no one has responded yet; I'm guessing that most people haven't begun to frequent the area yet. Kinda too early for the snow/ice routes, and too late for the rock routes.

 

John, you could certainly find out for us, and get the ball rolling, though

[Marko]

Went up Mtnr Creek a ways this past Saturday: Shin deep snow at 5400' out in the open, less in the trees.

 

Enjoy!

[Alpinfox]

.... I'll bet the gully totally melted out, or nearly so, this summer. ...

 

Attached is a picture of the N. side of Colchuck in early September. I think the NBC is just out of the picture to the right?

[Chad_A]

Wow...got pretty bare up there. Actually, the gully to the right would be the NEBC. The NBC is off to the right.

 

Thanks for the info, Marko. I'm looking forward to getting up there again

[Juan]

Here's the skinny on Colchuck: The trail is covered in ice for much of the way, making it a more challenging walk than normal. When you hit the lake, and get to the far end, you get into snow that is maybe 18" at the deepest but is covered in breakable crust in many places. Getting up to the moraine on snow covered rocks, with the ever-present danger of punching through, was much more time consuming than normal and really no fun at all.

 

The NBC was climbed yesterday I believe, though the party of three was less than half way up the gully at 12:30, so who knows how this outing went for them. Anyone know? I wouldn't have wanted to climb it yesterday given the relative lack, and unconsolidated nature, of the snow, but perhaps they found better conditions than we believed they would.

 

The area needs a whole lot of snow this year and beyond for the glacier to come back to its size even ten years ago.

 

Cheers,

 

John Sharp

[NYC007]

There was a few thin gully above the lake filled with ice, nothing too great but its ice.. One looked like alot of fun thought about 30m thin slab next to a right facing corner..

[leejams]

The NBC was climbed yesterday I believe, though the party of three was less than half way up the gully at 12:30, so who knows how this outing went for them. Anyone know? I wouldn't have wanted to climb it yesterday given the relative lack, and unconsolidated nature, of the snow, but perhaps they found better conditions than we believed they would.

 

Cheers,

 

John Sharp

 

 

Were you the two folks we saw down on that morain rib I am guessing? Yes it was a very long day. The water ice (thin) sections ate up some time, but the snow above in the gulley was fine. The back side scramble to the summit was bare so that ate up more time. The party of three was myself, jayb, and mark. hopefully when jay wakes up he will post a trip report with pic's

[JayB]

I am going to have to work late to compensate for arriving at the crack of 1:15 to start the workday, but can summarize the outing.

 

-The morraine sucks. Big time. We had breakable crust on top of faceted depth hoar all the way up.

 

-The Northeast Buttress Couloir (we climbed the NE Couloir described in the second edition of Nelsons book) looked like it has zero snow on the lower 2/3 of the route. If you are into infinite drytooling, this may be the time to hit it. The NE couloir, on the climber's right, had a bit of everything. The very bottom of the couloir has a thin-ice flow on the left side, above which is a bare rock step. We bypassed this on the right, then broke left into the couloir just above the dry step.

 

There were some brief steps covered with thin ice that we encountered about 1/3 of the way up, which we belayed and protected with pins, a bad screw, and a girth hitched refrozen snow-thingy. We climbed the remainder of the couloir with a running belay, using rock pro (mostly pins) and a picket. We encountered more of the breakable crust over faceted snow here, as well as some world class crawl-stroke-through-waist-deep-spindrift-over-ice action as well.

 

-Above the couloir, the going was mostly easy. We continued with the running belay until the snow ran out, then did some 4th class-ish scrambling on choss (getting dark), then broke out the rope again for a 100 foot section featuring more of the faceted snow over slabs and choss (fully dark by this time), which I surmounted with a combination of profanity and some dirt-tooling, then continued on through the secret notch on the left that puts you on the summit.

 

-We topped out well after dark, but I think this was my fourth time doing the descent, and the second time on the route, so I more or less had it memorized, but if there wasn't at least one person in the group who knew the route it could have definitely turned into an epic (we would most likely have rapped the couloir if I hadn't done the route before).

 

We made it back to the cars by 2:30AM.

 

Final thoughts - classic alpine smorgasboard, quite a bit more involved on the way up and down than in April (big suprise there), and probably not the best outing to introduce the girlfriend to the joys of alpine climbing on.

 

Will try to post photos and TR tomorrow.

 

Lee - feel free to post some of your photos if you are still awake..

[Juan]

Dude:

 

We were guessing you would be at the car at 10:00 p.m. at the latest. We turned around on the dog route after I added up the time it would take to get to the top and then back down, realizing that the hike out would be in the dark, and knowing that everything from the moraine on down to the car was slippery and crusty and really not very fun walking. Matt, who had never been to the Colchuck Lake area, was in agreement, but certainly wants to go back. Our objective was the same as yours -- it would have been my fifth time up the NBC I think. We sized it up as not being very fast yesterday.

 

Good job and I'm glad you made it out safely.

 

Cheers,

 

John

Edited November 23, 2004 by Juan

[JayB]

No time to type up the TR and sort through the photos just yet, but here's a visual update on conditions. Lots of nasty clouds moving in just as we were leaving the summit on Sunday night, so there may be more snow up there now. I would say that just about all of the routes need a considerable amount of snowfall, followed by a solid melt-freeze cycle before it's worth investing the time and energy required to make the trip up there. Also - the big early season snowfall that hit in September (?) was a one off event, and the dry cool conditions have morphed most of what fell into faceted crystals topped off by a melt-freeze crust. Take that into account when you are sizing up condititions this winter.

 

[Chad_A]

Thanks

[NYC007]

triple is looking phat....

[John Frieh]

Madness is where it's at... where is my weather window?

[NYC007]

THAT BLANK GULLY

[John Frieh]

Dragontail Madness... no ice required (just cold temps). Beckey guidebook for details.