[TR] colchuck peak - ne couloir right var. 2/25/2008

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Trip: colchuck peak - ne couloir right var.

 

Date: 2/25/2008

 

Trip Report:

On friday night Frank and I arrived in leavenworth much too late, and after 2 hours sleep woke up much too early. We skied the road, ditching our skis near the trailhead and switching to snowshoes for the trail. After ~4 hrs we arrived at the lake in beautiful weather with only a few other folks around.

 

 

We headed up to the moraine intent on climbing something on the NE side of colchuck.

 

 

 

Plan A looked a bit hard, so we moved to plan B, which was a direct ascent of the NE couloir. I tried the NE couloir a few years back, but we bailed after getting pummeled with sizeable spin drift avalanches. At the time I noted most TRs and beta suggested following a left trending couloir at 2/3 height, dealing with a problematic cornice, then intersecting the colchuck glacier route a few hundred feet from the summit. Looking at pictures of the route, it seemed as though a right hand variation would also be possible, finishing more or less directly to the summit. I'm sure this has been done plenty of times before, but I couldnt find much info on it.link

 

right hand finish in red, left hand finish in green (original photo stolen from summitpost.com)

 

Anyhow, we dropped our snowshoes, poles and 2nd rope at an opportune return spot on the glacier and headed up the couloir. Conditions in the couloir varied from soft powder to nicer consolidated almost neve.

 

 

Along the way we checked out a few detours toward the NE buttress, but sugary unconsolidated snow ended those efforts quickly.

 

We climbed unroped past the bottleneck to a nice stance just below a rock step. Here we ate and drank, and frank decided to throw one of his gloves into a rock moat (recovered via excavation). We were getting pretty tired from lack of sleep and excess of exercise, so we werent moving particularly fast at this point. After the well earned rest, we broke out the rope and I belayed frank to the base of the rock step. After much digging in snow, he finally found a suitable belay and brought me up. First a led off out left towards an iced corner, but a complete lack of protection opportunities led me to downclimb and climb the iced rock step directly. The climbing was fairly tenuous mixed terrain, with difficult to find, but just barely adequate protection. After a while, the angle eased off to thunker neve, followed by steepish sugary snow. I climbed towards a promising rock outcrop, just reached it on a taught rope, and started digging for anchors, but the rock provided no cracks. I secretly wished for a bolt kit Anyhow, after moving massive volumes of snow, I gave up and down climbed to another outcropping out left and repeated the excavation process, this time I was lucky to find a solid crack and a manky crack to build an anchor (all in all, finding this anchor took the best part of an hour). I belayed Frank up as the scenery opened up and became more dramatic.

 

 

hmm, interesting....

 

 

From here, Frank led up steepening sugary snow, originally heading straight for the short rocky headwall, but backing down from the unsupportive base, and instead moving rightward to a notch on the ridge crest. Here, sugary snow covered awkward mixed moves, but there was good protection again.

 

 

From the notch, it appeared that an easy snow gully would lead straight to the summit (this may be the standard north buttress finish). However, the sugar snow made upward progress nearly impossible until I abandoned hopes of climbing snow and instead focused on the gully walls. Ultimately I topped out a few yards from the summit and belayed Frank up in the beautiful setting sun.

 

 

A quick jog to the summit and we headed down, admiring the beautiful sunset and great looking ski tracks coming down the glacier.

 

 

We were able to find our way back to our gear stash just as weather started to move in, but from there the way down was just easy and tedious.

 

Gear Notes:

half set nuts

lost arrow + knife blade

cams: blue tcu to gold camalot

3 screws, didnt place, but only because I left them behind with frank at rock step. would have been nice to have one of the 13cm with me.

2 pickets - only ever used 1.

 

Approach Notes:

trail was well packed, and followed summer route very nicely. good job whoever put this one in first. Snowshoes were useful, but not necessary for the approach. Skis made the road descent much faster, but only slightly less painful.

[Bug]

Nice work. Looks fun.

I did the green route once. Yup, the cornice was interesting. But someone had already chopped through it for me. It was filled back in about 2/3 but not as solid as the rest of the cornice. It sounds like we had better conditions than you but its hard to say who had more fun..

[goatboy]

Outstanding!

 

Sounds like a fair amount of sugary snow but you guys made a go of it.

 

The photos are great too.

 

[jbyers]

Nice work guys! What a beautiful day to be up in the mountains. We were up there thinking about the N Buttress Couloir, and saw you heading up. Instead we just had a fun easy day skiing the glacier, and thanks for grabbing that one skin my buddy lost!

[colt45]

Nice!

Looks like the conditions you encountered on the route were better than what I encountered at work...

[Alex]

Nice. You got alot of snow up there now, might have filled in the rock step that stopped me, mattp, and Dan Smith a number of years ago when we headed up that route. We ended up doing what Bug calls the "green" finish, which was actually really nice.

[TrogdortheBurninator]

the rock step was still there, and definitely the crux of the route. maybe not quite as tall though as when you climbed it. you can make it out near the top of the third picture. i think frank might have another picture of it closer up.

[madeinmontana]

Great job guys....and you made it down that night! That must have been nice. Nice to meet you at the lake.

[alps]

Yeah, it was great to get back to the car finally... I'll try to post a few of my pictures tomorrow.

[TrogdortheBurninator]

Here are a few more photos from frank (alps):

 

 

getting into the crux:

 

gaining the north ridge:

 

harder than it looks, but super fun:

 

On top and smiling:

[alps]

Ok, looks like you were faster posting these...