mkporwit Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 Trip: McClellan Butte - North Couloir Date: 1/25/2009 Trip Report: Toast and I decided that with the avalanche danger still low that the North Couloir of McClellan would be a good thing to try. Our friend Dwayne decided to join us. We got a pretty leisurely start on the day -- we didn't hit the trail until 8:40 am. The snow on the trail is very hard packed, with occasional bare patches due to flooding having washed it all out. No snow shoes are necessary. Around 11 am we were at ~3400', ready to enter the couloir. So far so good. The couloir climbs about ~1500, starting with an angle of maybe 40 degrees. The last few hundred feet have a sting in the tail, however, with the slope rising to what looked like a sustained 50 degrees+. The snow is very firm. In many places it was bulletproof neve, only taking the first four points of a crampon. We were slow in the couloir. By the time all of us were under the north face of McClellan, wondering how to best tackle that chosspile, it was 2:40pm. Dwayne went first, and got maybe ten feet off the deck with a couple of pins under him. After taking his first trad leader fall on the suspect second pin, he eventually decided he did not have it in him. Toast then gave it a go. Despite careful gardening and cleaning on his part, he did not get much higher. He too bailed. Seeing as they backed off, I was not about to make another attempt. Besides, int was 4pm and we were now faced with descending the couloir instead of picking up the regular hiking trail had we gained the summit. We rapped the first 200', since that was the steepest. Then we embarked on what seemed like endless downclimbing, facing in to the slope. At some point I started getting cramps in my quads, and since it was still very steep we switched to rappelling for a while. That slowed down the pace, but at least now I didn't have to worry about falling off if my legs seized again. We had a 50m rope, and did six rappels interspersed with short sections of downclimbing. At around 4000' feet Toast suggested we head climber's left over the couloir wall and into the trees. Within half an hour we met up with the trail and headed down. We thought we were home free. Upon hitting the Iron Horse trail, I had the bright idea of heading left instead of right. Just a couple hundred feet to the left was where the power lines crossed the Iron Horse. We could head down under the power lines instead of crashing through downed timber. So we got do to that and plenty of it. We lost the tracks we were following, at some point dropping as low as 1300' (the TH is ~1450'). My little idea cost us over an hour of trying to reacquire the trail. We got to the car at midnight. No pics from me, as Toast and Dwayne were the ones with the cameras. The high point of the trip was stopping at the 24-hour diner at the truck stop in North Bend and having burgers and chicken fried steak at 1am. Gear Notes: A handful of pins, small cams/nuts (not used). Thought about bringing more ice tools (we had one hammer for pins). Approach Notes: Trail is firm, no snowshoes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob Posted January 26, 2009 Share Posted January 26, 2009 nice job anyway, way to bail at least. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mkporwit Posted January 28, 2009 Author Share Posted January 28, 2009 Dwayne finally put his pictures up on flickr. starting up the couloir Toast nearing the steeper portion my belay stance for the next two hours Dwayne trying to get us up the face Toast having a go of it the scenic views on our descent Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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