Guye Peak in Winter

[wayne]

Do people know of the gem that can be Guye peak in winter? The S. Rib was truly a kick in the pants today! We tried to stay as close to the rib(next to the W. face) as possible and it was amazing to put it lightly >the ice was thin but the rock was protectable and sound with trees for belays .The adventure of it all was par excellence and I will repeat it with its many variations in the future. It has access and ambience except for maybe the traffic and skiers but it is a must do!

Check it out if you havent already.......

[layton]

nice going! I've heard that peak has wonderful winter potential.

[fleblebleb]

Yah, that thing rules. Hop on it now, before the interesting parts fill in with snow and change it into a slogging step kicking session. Stay on the Rib as much as you can, the views into the West Face are seriously sweet.

 

 

[Ade]

Did it on the 24th. Very Scottish, especially considering the weather, put down 3" or so on the Alpental road during the day. Visibility was pretty bad, not more than a few hundred feet most of the time but I think we followed your line.

 

I'm told this route actually gets better in Jan/Feb when there is more ice and the snow is more likely to be consolidated.

 

The West face really doesn't have anything on it, not must snow and probably even less ice. Pity really.

[fleblebleb]

I bet it gets a lot friendlier when the ice thickens.

 

What do you think climbing the W Face would be like, given the current conditions? Much of the steep sections looked dry to me, but with snow on all the ledges etc.

[Ade]

Not very pleasant I would imagine. On the 28th a lot of the snow wasn't consolidated and much of the ice wouldn't bear much weight (let alone my 200lbs). I've done the improbable traverse route in summer and from what I remember (backed up by the guidebook description) it involves some 5.7 friction. The route above the lower gullies looked to be completely devoid of any snow/ice to me. The routes on the left side of the face would probably go, the big rightward slanting gully for instance.

[highclimb]

The west face can be a fun adventure in the right conditions. In the winter of 2001, Colin and I did the west face (north section) via the large ramp that cuts through the face. it consisted of moderate snow climbing(in trees) and then zigzaging connecting ramps via steep snow climbing on rock. probably 5.2-3 in some areas. a fun half day object but wait for more snow coverage and a good solid forecast.

 

Aidan

Edited January 7, 2003 by highclimb

[minx]

Even in these conditions, Guye has been pretty fun. In fact, I think it's been a better climb lately than it was last fall w/o any snow. We climbed the west side south section last weekend...pretty decent given the weather we've been having. Can't wait until there's more snow! I heard a few folks out there on New Years Eve in the moonlight. Probably a better way to spend it than the hang over I earned!

[fleblebleb]

It's pretty sweet right now. I climbed the gully that's so obvious from the Alpental parking lot today, with Geek the Greek and one other. It's very mellow, but nice. Then we had a Guye moment once we actually got on the west face, one of those "huh where the hell are we". We turned out to be north of the NW Chimney route described by Beckey, but had been hoping to climb that route. Oops...

 

That gully we started in has nice ice in it, I'd recommend it for people that are starting out. We used two pickets, slung one or two trees and placed one screw, each placement about a ropelength from the previous one. This was mostly because we were three on a rope, it makes more sense to just lose the rope altogether if you're comfortable on crusty snow and low-angle ice. It felt very solid the whole way.

 

The snow was a lot crustier and more solid down low than up near the north summit. There didn't seem to be much climbable ice on Guye proper, although we saw plenty of icicles and thin verglas. The descent from the summit to the car took ca. 45 minutes, without snowshoes

[pope]

I think we saw you guys. You were 'bout half way up at 9:30. Looked really fun. And you say the bulge was fatty ice? Yesterday had superb snow climbing conditions!

[klenke]

Three of us climbed the South Gully-South Spur route yesterday. We intended to climb the S. Rib route but wound up starting one gully too far east. This gully starts at about 4,100 ft. Sergio led the first few hundred feet of the snowy/icy gully (class 4 mixed climbing with some good stemming) until just before the gully narrowed at a overhanging boulder/chockstone at about 4,400 ft. I then took the lead and attempted to surmount this overhang, but could not do so due to conditions and my having crampons and a pack on (tight squeeze). A 45-degree ramp to the left (west) looked feasible, so I climbed up the 50 feet up to the top of this ramp (loose snow over slabby rock! Yikes!) but the ramp cliffed out on the left and became a class 5 wall on the right. I dared not do the necessary class 5.5-ish traverse with crampons on (no place to put the downhill foot). Then I looked over to the east and saw a semi-open timbered slope that would be a cake walk to get 200 feet higher up. So I bailed on the class 5 stuff and downclimbed uneasily back to the gully so we could get over to the timbered slope.

 

I ascended the slope until it steepened whereupon I made for a big tree to make an anchor so I could fix my camera, which John had been using/toting at the time. From there, John led the rest of the way to the summits and beyond. The gully he started out in was the same gully that we had begun the climb in lower down. It's a good thing I was not able to get over the overhang in the gully to continue in it, because there was much harder climbing unseen in there. We basically circumvented the worst part of this gully by going out onto the timbered slope to the right. We saw plenty of rappel slings on the way up, so we must have been someplace commonly visited.

 

Including about an hour wasting time routefinding near the overhang, the climb took 1 hour to get from car to gully mouth then four hours to the top. We parked at the hairpin turn in the chalet area directly below the S. Rib [by the Section 33 mark on the USGS map]. From the true summit, it was easy to get back to the Cave Ridge saddle. At each sub-summit impediment, we descended rightward (eastward) around it and climbed up the next available gully to the ridge crest. Do not go to the west side of the sub-summits. In two more hours we were at the Alpental parking lot and shortly after that we were at the lodge bar having a quaff. Sergio bummed a ride back to the car. On the way back, John was even so considerate as to bring for us to indulge in.

 

All in all, it was an enjoyable outing, despite the fact we missed the South Rib.

 

We saw tracks near the summit when we got there around 2:15PM. That must have been your tracks Fleblebleb.

[fleblebleb]

 

Pope, there were ~15-20' of ~70 degree water ice close to the bottom of the gully. The rest was crusty snow, but what a nice, firm crust!

 

Klenke, actually, there were tracks all over the place when we got up there. Nobody had bothered to tag the north summit though. For awhile on the descent down to the Guye-Snoq saddle I successfully deluded myself into thinking that the extremely faint footprints I was following were my own tracks from about a month ago, but that might have been overly optimistic, heh.

[Ade]

Humm... I had my eye on one of the lines right up the front of the face, the Improbable Traverse for instance. But it doesn't seem to be holding any snow at all. Just this sad solitary drip of ice stuck in the middle of nowhere way out on the face.

It's also got 5.7 friction moves on it, which might not go in winter - not for me anyway. I've done the route in summer but a long time ago so I can't remember what it was like.

 

Oh well food for thought anyway.