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Elliot Glacier Headwall


boyzinthehood

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Camped on the Elliot Glacier flats Weds night about 7500'. To the summit up the direct route (right side of Elliot Glacier Headwall.) Crossing 'schrund at 9500' at top of snowdome very easy as of now. Crossing 'schrund at just above 10,000' took a little work and will be downright impossible soon - will have to traverse climber's right onto the standard Sunshine Rte to pass. Climbing about up to 40 deg or so on the headwall, soft post-holing. 5 leisurely hours to summit. Left skis at 11,000' - W ridge icy/ crunchy.

 

Skied EG Headwall - so tasty! Perfectly softened by noon with a firm base, sliding slush. Large crevasse about 300' down is passable on either side and the rest of the glacier is completely closed. Traversed back onto snowdome about 9000' with great skiing to about 7800' then mush. Skied direct back onto Elliot Glacier. Cracks visible but still small and narrow on the flats at 7500'. Snow to just below Tilly Jane Cabin at about 5,600' but oh so dirty and slow! Full on carbon-skiing! Dusty hike down the last 2.5 miles to the Tilly Jane TH, plenty of downed trees to cross.

 

Gear: Icelantic Nomad skis w/ Mega-ride boots (plug.) Ace axe (long) and crampons a must. Good to have harness and short rope for crossing schrund (and someone willing to lead it!)

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Were you dodging anything? I'm a little confused...the top of the Snowdome is the Coe Glacier Headwall..so did you climb this or the Elliot Headwall which is closer to Cooper Spur and separated from the Coe by the North Rib? Just wondering....

 

 

Ummm... I think there may be a couple of confused individuals :crazy:

 

NFaceGully1.JPG

 

Elliot Headwall is circled in pink. The two light blue lines are the N. Face Gullies, Dark blue line is Sunshine Route, Light green line is cooper spur. N. Face Cleaver is the major rock feature between N. Face gullies and Elliot Headwall. This pic doesn't do much justice to the Elliot Headwall.

 

 

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Yes Joe, the Coe is around the corner.

 

I'm not calling BS on this, but aside from a shitty, steep thread winding through the route, and a precarious drop into/onto the Eliot GH, where is the line? I know it's "skiable," but where exactly did you ski it? You can drop off CR and pretty much ski any line from there, but a true descent of the EGH?

 

Not that you didn't do it. I'm just curious.

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One more just to clarify (and someone please tell me if I'm wrong cause I'm certianly not the best resource for this stuff!)

 

Hoody.JPG

 

With the Elliot Headwall circled in red and the coe glacier in green. Gosh the snowdome looks nice in this pic. Not trying to be a whiny little beeotch Boyz, but just wanted to check for sure cause a ski descent of the Elliot Headwall may be a first and sorta a big deal. Regardless of where you went, :tup: :tup: to you for a good trip and writeup.

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Would be accurate to say that the Coe Glacier is the most remote part of the mountain? I know in the summer there are some trail access points but in winter you're stuck traversing your ass off either from Cloud Cap or Timberline, right? I like knowing that there are places like this on Hood.

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So, I was on this trip but didn't ski the face described cuz I'm a shitty skier and I would've died. I wasn't too stoked on that so I turned back around 10,200' at the last crevasse crossing, just below and climbers left of a large rock tower. The other three kids headed up climbers left of the tower (I thought the Sunshine route traversed farther right around this tower, then up easier ground to the summit?) to the summit ridge.

 

The Elliot Glacier Headwall itself was a few runnels of snice over bullet-proof blue glacial ice; they skied skier's left of the headwall, avoiding several large crevasses and the large cliff at the bottom. Traversed skier's left at the bottom to meet up with me at the top of Snowdome. We then skied to the Elliot Glacier basin and our bivy, packed up, and headed out.

 

Sorry, I'm computer-retarded and don't know how you're marking the pics above (what software? I'm on a Mac...) but here are a couple of shots.

 

From our bivy at sunrise:

IMG_2356.jpg

 

The skiers skied just climbers right of the rock rib protruding from the Elliot Glacier Headwall. You can see some of the substantial crevasse danger they encountered.

 

A view of my high point and the climbing route they took (little dots adjacent to tower):

IMG_2382.jpg

 

This is a pretty good, albeit foreshortened view of their descent route; they came down just next to the protruding rock band and on the far side of the substantial icefall in the pic.

 

So. Not a true ski-descent of the Headwall itself, but I think that's an issue of semantics and not due to inappropriate chestbeating. In any case, it was a rad trip with pretty fantastic conditions. I wish the pics did the route more justice. Even for me and my suck-ass skiing, Snowdome was awesome. Get on it now before the crevasses open up lower on the Elliot!

 

Cheers,

Erik

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OK, we're not Doug Coombs (rest his soul) and we didn't ski the North Face couloirs. I'm hesitant to get into this since it sounds like there are some people with pretty strong opinions about what is what on the North side. I consider the headwall the steepest part above a glacial cirque. We skied the steepest skiable line - at the time - off the west ridge onto the Elliot Glacier and followed the glacier down to 9000'. It's not the same as the Sunshine route - this trends to climbers right or west above the Coe Glacier. We didn't ascend this way, either. I added a couple pix. Like scheissami said, the stuff to skiers right does not go. Thanks for reading, brahs.

 

 

IMG_0215.JPGIMG_02182.JPG

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One more just to clarify (and someone please tell me if I'm wrong cause I'm certianly not the best resource for this stuff!)

 

Hoody.JPG

 

With the Elliot Headwall circled in red and the coe glacier in green. Gosh the snowdome looks nice in this pic. Not trying to be a whiny little beeotch Boyz, but just wanted to check for sure cause a ski descent of the Elliot Headwall may be a first and sorta a big deal. Regardless of where you went, :tup: :tup: to you for a good trip and writeup.

 

Thanks for drawing out the lines...looks like I need to circumnavigate the mountain to get to know it better...so is the ?Langullie? (spelling) Glacier one more step to picture right from the green area?

 

Anyway...apart from geographical hysteria great ski run..nice fat skis too...I just got my first pair of fat skis I hope to put to good use this next season as soon as I get some dukes on'em..

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OK, we're not Doug Coombs (rest his soul) and we didn't ski the North Face couloirs. I'm hesitant to get into this since it sounds like there are some people with pretty strong opinions about what is what on the North side. I consider the headwall the steepest part above a glacial cirque. We skied the steepest skiable line - at the time - off the west ridge onto the Elliot Glacier and followed the glacier down to 9000'. It's not the same as the Sunshine route - this trends to climbers right or west above the Coe Glacier. We didn't ascend this way, either. I added a couple pix. Like scheissami said, the stuff to skiers right does not go. Thanks for reading, brahs.

 

Nice work fellas. Please forgive me if my OP came off as being critical. I really was just wondering if you had in fact somehow found a line down the EGH itself, I would have loved to hear where it was if you had. Great job in getting up there. Great pics too.

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From 6/3 USFS current conditions update online:

 

Road 3512 which leads to Tilly Jane is impassable due to snow just above the Cooper Spur Ski Area. The road is open to the ski area.

 

Does not sound like a permanent closure some wrote of to me...

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Great TR and pics, wondering WTF I'm doing sitting in front of my computer instead of being there.

 

I called the Hood River Rangers office last week about the Cooper Spur - Tilly Jane area. Ranger said they will prolly close the TJ trail for the summer, along with the whole Cooper Spur area including Cloud Cap campground to allow for the re-forestation growth. Also noted the road to CC will not be opened this year at all. What worries me more is that they might not open the TJ / Gnarl Ridge / Cooper Spur area for next few years as well.

 

Call them at 541-352-6002.

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We climbed Cooper spur a couple weeks ago and just hiked the trail at a intentional moderate pace. It took just over an hour to get to Tilly Jane. The trail leaves from the gate blocking the road to Cloud cap, and is very strait forward 2.5 miles. Don't let a little hike stop you from the best alpine setting in oregon. Easy access to Sunshine as well dropping across the Elliot.

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