[TR] North Cascades - Cutthroat Wilson-Cauthorn attempt 12/17/2013

[Eric K]

Trip: North Cascades - Cutthroat Wilson-Cauthorn attempt

 

Date: 12/17/2013

 

Trip Report:

Back in November about a week before the Highway closed, Josh and I thought there may be enough ice to make a attempt on cutthroats east face. The approach was long and the snow sucked just enough to need skis. We were very happy when we made it to the route.

We started climbing not sure if there would be enough ice and the ice we could see in the upper corner looked very suspect but we had made it all the way there so we decided to give it a go. Josh lead past the first little ice step which at one point had enough ice to take half of a 13cm screw.

He found two sketchy pin placements before the next bit of ice. I lead up to the end of the ice, I could not find any place to put any gear since the rock was all crud. Since there was no ice left and no good rock in sight I down climbed back to the anchor and down climbed the rest from there. Josh pulled the pins out by hand so his anchor was really no good anyway. The climbing was not hard so we probably could have climbed it but we will wait until spring and have a bit more fun on the route.

 

Gear Notes:

If we had small cams we could have had a few placements

 

Approach Notes:

Skis

[Jon H]

Any time you can clean your anchor pins by hand is a good time to reconsider your objective for the day.

[glassgowkiss]

If this is considered "bad rock", don't bother going to the Rockies.

[Alex]

I know its difficult to say just from looking at pics, but having done this route it doesn't look any thicker in your pics than it did when we did it in Spring conditions.

[jayhawk]

Eric - I did have to funk those pins out, so while they looked bad, they weren't that bad. Alex - we were pretty sure that the white stuff in the corner on the dihedral pitch was just snow. But it was still a good day out - first day of the year for me skiing, placing a screw, placing pins.

 

Josh

[glassgowkiss]

I must take back my previous comment. I looked at the picture from 10 years ago and there was more ice on the bottom section. The crux pitch was mostly rock gear.

Edited December 19, 2013 by glassgowkiss