[TR] SEWS - Southwest Coulour 5/9/2008

[monkeyboy]

Trip: SEWS - Southwest Coulour

 

Date: 5/9/2008

 

Trip Report:

Drove up to Washington Pass Thursday evening with "Lucky" Lukic and camped at pullout for Lone Fir campground. Toilet was accessible, clean, and had TP! Friday morning we woke up bright and early and powered up on coffee and oatmeal.Drove back to the pass and parked a little west of the hairpin curve. Limited parking near here, maby room for 3 or 4 cars. Started on route at 8:00 with blue skies,and firm snow.Sweated our way up to the upper pass where a brief break was in order. Saw a couple of skiers hanging out on a nearby peak, guessing they were waiting for things to soften up a bit. I wished I had my crampons on for the traverse over to the base of the coulour but managed ok without them. Our strategy was to get all geared up here and ready so when we wanted to pull the rope out we would be ready to simu-climb, or belay pitches. We decided Lucky would lead so I gave him the pickets, ice screws, and stoppers. Since he had the rope in his pack he was now pretty much carrying all of the gear. Some steps from prior ascents near the beginning led to firmer steeper snow with no steps. Lucky and I were feeling pretty good with our 2 tools working so we decided to just keep climbing and not use the rope. About 1/2 way up Lucky's crampon started to come off. He was able to step a little off to one side and get it back on without as much as a single curse word. All I could think was that I was glad it was not me! We arrived at the top of the coulour at 11:15 and called it good there. A short down climb led to our first of 3 raps. Trying to rappell over rock with crampons on was interesting. I probably should have taken them off like my smarter than me partner but I was too lazy. I was still not entirely happy with down climbing the rest so Lucky earned my everlasting thanks by lowering me down an extra rope length. At one point a nice large chunk of hard snow came whizzing down towards me and I looked down just in time to get a loud thunk on the head.Helments are good. We downclimbed the rest. At this point the snow near the bottom was starting to soften a bit and ball up on our crampons. Lucky wanted to stop and take off harness and stuff here, but I convinced him to keep going a litle further to the pass.Did I mention lucky still had all the gear! We took another brief break and basked in the glory of a sunny day in the mountains. From here it was a nice but bumpy glissade down about 600 feet, followed by a little traversing to get right of the big tree.From there one long fun glissade led us right to the highway.Back at the car by 2:20. Wrapped up the trip with a stop at Good Food in Marblemount. The only thing I like better than climbing is a big fat greasy burger after climbing. I highly recommend this route. Get yourself some!

 

Gear Notes:

ice ax, second tool, crampons, rope, brain bucket

 

Approach Notes:

Hairpin curve approach.

[Lukic]

Thanks for posting the summit shot ... I think. It's a funny photo.

[goatboy]

Thanks for the TR and the conditions report.

 

Having climbed this route a handful of times over the past decade, I have a hard time envisioning conditions in which ice screws would be useful (at least when the road is open!)

 

Anyone ever do this one in spring conditions where the ice would actually take screws (rather than just being firm snow or thing ice over rock)???