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[TR] Mt Harvey- North Face 2/17/2006


jmace

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Climb: Mt Harvey-North Face

 

Date of Climb: 2/17/2006

 

Trip Report:

A short TR as I am a tad tired.

 

What do you do when every ones gotta work and the alpine is just screamng your name? Easy, trade sleep for swingin the tools!

 

Picked the Boys up drove up to the Church off Taylor way and waited for Don S to show up at the agreed time of 12am today. Well the boys in blue showed up first rightly confused why 3 grown men were hanging out in church parking lot at midnight..all was well and Don showed shortly after that and we were off.

 

Leaving the Lions Bay parking lot at 1230 am we hiked under clear cold skies to the base and where the wind was howling and the temps were chilly, -11 overnight on Grouse Mt. Not wanting to do anything but keep moving we ran up the ramp and the ridge to the summit in 4.5 hours from the car, I think it was 1 hour 15 mins on the ramp itself. It just kept on howling and was freaking cold so we were not waiting for the sunrise as we had hoped. Quickly down to the Lion basin and the road and easily walked back to the cars for sunrise at 740 am.

 

7 hours car to car and still had time to go home for a few z's before work, well I did, Don went straight to work.

 

Toby F. Jeff H. my self and Don S. all had a wicked time romping up and down bullet proof snow, this weekend oughta be perfect!

 

See you out there!

 

Gear Notes:

Two tools, two crampons

 

Approach Notes:

Road

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Not ice like that, wow, just super thunker neve up the runnel, as dru said in his Bivouac post the only lame thing about that is the constant spin drift flying in your face.

 

Nah J I was just strecthin the legs, packed and in bed before 9pm is my goal, super stoked!

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7 hours car to car and still had time to go home for a few z's before work, well I did, Don went straight to work.

 

 

i should probably post no comment and let the legend grow,

but i must correct...

 

on the way to work, in the bright early morning sunshine, buzzing from having a GREAT time out, i realized that there was nothing i HAD to do today, and that my eyes were rolling in my head. so i hung a right across the bridge, went home, phoned off, soaked in a hot bathtub for 45 minutes, and caught 3 hrs sleep. now i've just finished a huge bacon and eggs fry-up, and the day STILL seems wonderful.

 

i'm not sure what conditions are like higher and/or further inland, but out by the coast the snow is harder than a 16 year old boy at a hookers convention. get out there!

 

cheers, don

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got out onto the route yesturday. I can't believe the different shape that this one can be in.

 

ALmost all evidence of previous ascents had vanished via the spindrift. Conditions were shall we say thunker.

 

I went up to try this early in the year(dec/nov) and found only rock in the shallow areas and bottomless snow everywhere else. This time you didn't even realize were the cruxs might be found.

 

Great day out yesturday 6hr15mis ctc, but mostly cause there was no vis on top so we just started right down. Definetly not that cold yesturday.

 

I should mention that the snow in the forest was scetchy in some parts, with a bomber ice crust over top of the untracked and it was like a skating rink in the tracks.

 

Looking outside it looks like we might have to wait a bit again for better conditions. bigdrink.gifbigdrink.gif

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ALmost all evidence of previous ascents had vanished via the spindrift. Conditions were shall we say thunker.

 

I went up to try this early in the year(dec/nov) and found only rock in the shallow areas and bottomless snow everywhere else. This time you didn't even realize were the cruxs might be found.

 

Great day out yesturday 6hr15mis ctc, but mostly cause there was no vis on top so we just started right down. Definetly not that cold yesturday.

 

good going. nice outing, eh? a fave of mine...

 

and your time makes me wonder

a) what's the best time ctc anybody has done on this so far?

b) what's the best that could be done? think it could go in 4 hrs ctc? (no pre-placed skis allowed for speeding the descent...) 5 hrs surely isn't overly challenging for a fit person/party travelling lite... (altho probably not for my somewhat-aged legs/lungs!)

 

anybody got any info? did Guy ever "flash" this route and tell anyone about it?

 

cheers, don

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5hrs is what I have heard, pretty sure the story was a solo for Guy.

 

THe best part is comparing times it takes for certain sections. We simul-climbed the whole route placing between 1 -2 pieces per 60m and took a lot longer at the technical? sections were as our fitness allowed for a fast approach and descent.

The original post in this thread talked of 1hr15to climb the ramp we took a lot longer

Here was the break down for us.

1hr30min approach to base of couloir/top of scree slope.

15min gear up

2hr45min to climb route to summit with 15min lucnh stop included.No view on the summit because of crappy weather so no time wasted except to coil the rope.

1hr45min descent to car. Taking off and putting on crampons twice on the way down. Ran the final road back to the car, had to be home for a course.

 

IT obviously is a condition dependent story. For us down through the open forest was easy because of snow conditions where as last year it was slow ass because of an ice crust.

 

Anyways solo would be the way to go.

 

HAS IT BEEN SKIED??? bigdrink.gifbigdrink.gif

 

Is the Royal Flush, T.R, somewhere around the Lions or Crown? fruit.gifyoda.gifyoda.gif

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you'd have trouble skiing immediately beneath the summit. there are a series of little rock walls and some bushy sections. on the way up, you avoid the rockwalls by traversing left (south), then cutting back to the crest once the way opens. you might be able to reverse this process on skis if the snowpack was hefty.

 

i'm no skier, but i'd reckon in good snow conditions the actual ramp wouldn't be a big problem. there is one section of 60º or a bit steeper for perhaps 20m. problematically, there tends to be a big "groove" created by avvy snow, so it's not like it's an open slope.

 

i suspect to hairiest part of the entire endeavour would be getting down the first 100m from the E ridge crest to the top of the ramp. this is at least as steep as the steep parts of the ramp itself, and requires a hard diagonal traverse and the crossing of a little snow-rib - and it's exposed as hell into a long, nasty gully.

 

go climb the route, then you tell me!

 

cheers, don

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I think in a big snowfall that lower "groove" might get filled in? If it did, I see no reason why the ramp couldn't be skiied. Has anyone ever done the climb with A LOT of snow? The upper traverse is exposed, but doable on skis; it's the 10m section of water ice above that that you might have to rap. Either way, likely more trouble than it's worth.

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I have a very capable skier fruit.giffriend who I know wants to ski it and has been in the lower section before on planks. fruit.gif

 

The key to me yoda.gif would suggest to climb the ramp to its top where there are a couple of misc big trees before it goes up the final steep slope into the traverse from the NW ramp to the Nface,put on the boards and have at er. From watching the route the last 3 years I would say that a good local dumping of snow on a signifcant base, say locals reporting 250 to fruit.gif 300cm, with blue bird skies forecasted wait a good couple of days and have at er. REMEMBER TO CHECK NORTH SHORE AVALANCHE ADVISORY

 

The danger shocked.gif on that ramp would be a sluff pushing you into the wall below the crux where it turns skiers right.

 

Its worth doing because it hasn't been done and it only would take you 4-5 hours to complete cheeburga_ron.gif, versus slogging up the sw ridge for probably more hours and problems gaining the top of the ramp yellowsleep.gif.

 

GIven all this info I wouldn't ski it or even dream of it put thats guz thats not my gig. But after seeing the difference between 3yrs ago, last year and this season twice I would believe that skiing it would be a great half day in the hills for the right folk bigdrink.gif

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