Joffre NE Glacier TR

[PaulB]

It was a quiet weekend in Cerise Creek. We had the hut to ourselves on Saturday night. Despite the forecast, and having poured rain all night, Sunday turned out to be great.

 

The NE Glacier route on Joffre is in fine shape. Mostly snow, with bare ice on the lower part of the "snow" spur. Getting around a crevasse high on the spur and crossing the 'schrund were the cruxes. We didn't go to the summit, but descended from the NW Ridge to the Matier Glacier, crossed to the col and back down to the hut.

 

On the approach we had a good look at the NE Face couloirs; Joffre looks like its still in good shape, but the Central & Twisting look to be more rock than snow or ice.

[layton]

Nice Job!!!

 

I think I should post some beta regarding getting off the mountain:

 

I've decended your route, which as I'm sure you'll agree having climbed it, would be a horrific descent. 2 ropes aren't long enough to reach the schrund, or the upper steep sections. If you descent this route, we've left some anchors at the col on top (slung blocks), a rock outcropping 55 meters down and to skiier's right(fixed pin), and 45 meters down and skiiers left(slung rocks). That's 2 double and one single rap to get across the schrund and off the steep snow.

 

Once past the schrund, descend down and right to another rocky ridge/outcropping and either follow the moat, or just left crossing another crevasse (scarry step across). Once across its a 1500' glissade down (or tedious downclimb). The whole desent took a long time, but we were searching for anchors on a pretty blank snowslope, and rapping with 4 people. A party of 2 with knowledge of the descent could do it in 3 hours, but we took 6 so who knows?

 

From the top to the col there are fixed raps, Stay on top of the Ridge (except for the 2nd rap)! You must climb a very short and easy wall at the tricky notch. Good rock, very short, and easy, but looks intimidating.

 

I'd take another way down, but if your heading up like your party did, then this route looks great (especially if the couliors aren't lookin' too good). I was up there last october after a very low snow year, and the central coulior still looked plenty "in".

[Dru]

what about going over the summit and down SE face? didn't want to deal with the "5.8" step on NW ridge?

 

when i did central it was snowy and we just went down oz gully in about 1/2 hour of step kicking and glissading.

[layton]

How do you get to Cerise creek from the oz gulley?

[mattp]

Walk over the Joffre-Matier col and down the Anniversary Glacier.

[Dru]

quote:

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Originally posted by mattp:

Walk over the Joffre-Matier col and down the Anniversary Glacier.

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via the hut

[Cpt.Caveman]

Dont forget your smoking devices when visiting the Flavelle hut

[PaulB]

Our original plan was to descend the SE Face, but we didn't think we had enough daylight left to rappel the notch, climb back up, go over the summit, find the top of the SE face (neither of us have climbed it) and go down it.

 

One rap (slung block) gets you from the col on the NW ridge into the gully. The gully is loose and dirty, but easy. When snow filled it would be even easier, and faster. I believe this gully is described in Fairley's guide as the standard descent off Joffre. From turning around at the notch, it took 4 hours to get back to the hut.