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[TR] Eldorado - NW Face Couloir 11/5/2007


Trent

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Trip: Eldorado - NW Face Couloir

 

Date: 11/5/2007

 

Trip Report:

For those interested in the conditions, Scott and I climbed the NW Face Couloir on Eldorado on Monday. The recent warm rain followed by cool clear weather made the climbing conditions excellent. The steep approach on Sunday took us 5 ½ hours to our camp on the Inspiration Glacier. The next morning we started marching at 0715, traversing across the east face on a frozen crust and descending a gully at the col to the immediate north of the North Ridge. We down-climbed a bit, then did two 30M rappels to get us into the North Cirque (See Alpinist David for further enlightenment). The climbing in the couloir was steep snice punctuated by steps of WI3 ice. The rock was mostly rimed and verglassed over, so rock pro was pretty scarce. It reminded me of pictures that I have seen of Scottish winter climbing, except that we were not making any frozen turf sticks. The climbing was very enjoyable with good body weight sticks the whole way up. We topped out four hours after starting, and went camp to camp in 7 ½ hours.

 

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Easy travel on the glacier

 

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Rapping into the northern cirque

 

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The route

 

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Belaying

 

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Following

 

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An ice step

 

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Fun!

 

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Topping out

 

Gear Notes:

Brought a light alpine rack, four screws, and two pickets. Could’ve used less rock pro and more pickets.

 

Approach Notes:

Trail free of snow to 6000 feet. Snow conditions were good early in the day with easy travel on a frozen rain crust.

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