[TR] Cutthroat Peak - Cauthorn-Wilson 4/4/2015

[jefetronic]

Trip: Cutthroat Peak - Cauthorn-Wilson

 

Date: 4/4/2015

 

Trip Report:

At about 11:45pm on Friday night, I picked Goran up at Seatac and we headed for the pass. We made it to the pullout for Cutthroat Peak at about 3am after a stop in Seattle and took a quick nap in the car, with alarms set for 4am. As we packed up our gear, we watched a beautiful lunar eclipse that took the valley, which had been bathed in bright moonlight, into darkness. We left the car at about 4:45am and the conditions were ideal for booting—the snow was firm, but secure enough to not need crampons for most of the way. We made it to the base of the couloir at about 6:15am, where we geared up as the sun rose.

 

There was plenty of snow in the couloir, but the ice was a bit thin, aerated, and brittle. Nevertheless, it was climbable. I led a short, steep pitch on this combination of neve and ice up to a fixed anchor below the crux corner pitch and brought Goran up on that anchor, backed up with a good screw. From there, it was party time. The crux pitch was really fun. In many places, the ice wasn't thick enough to fully swing into and required delicate tapping and hooking. I was able to get 2 decent screws in and then found rock protection higher up. While it seemed like using a chimney technique was possible, I was having too much fun climbing the ice and neve, so I stuck to the face. Once the angle eased off, it was just a little further to get to steep snow and I was able to run up the snow couloir all the way to the cave below the next step with our 70m rope. Inside the cave, I found a perfectly clear, thick ice flow which took two screws for an anchor perfectly. What a cool belay!

 

Goran led the next pitch, starting at about 9:15am, which ended up being a simul-climb to just below the summit. It was what I'd call sub-optimal, with sugar snow on rock and lots of post-holing in very steep snow. Goran found a few pieces of gear here and there and then brought me up just below the summit on a good anchor. I then headed past him on steep snow to the proper summit. It was about 11am at that point and completely gorgeous up there, with a commanding 360-degree view.

 

We knew that finding the descent route might be tricky. And it was. We searched for the first set of chains for over an hour in vain. They must have been buried under snow somewhere we didn't quite look. We found an old anchor which had been destroyed, but never found the true anchor, so we built an anchor off a horn with a pin backing it up and did a double-rope rap (we brought a tagline) off that and quickly found the next anchor. Hopefully someone will clean it up soon. Just as we were setting up our rap, our friend Will was finishing the route solo—impressive! He joined us on our series of slow raps down the face and we all hiked out together and enjoyed some awesome glissading.

 

This was an awesome climb in a beautiful setting with an unbeatable approach:climb ratio for this style. Now that I've summited, if I were to do it again, I'd rap after climbing the crux pitch—the rest of the route wasn't nearly as fun and was much harder to protect. Plus the West Ridge descent route is quite slow by comparison.

 

Approaching the couloir

 

Dawn on our way to the first pitch in deep snow

 

Looking down the first pitch

 

Looking down from the cave belay

 

Goran starting the last simul-block next to the cave

 

Goran on the summit

 

Gear Notes:

5 pins (used 3), set of nuts, 7 screws (used 3; 2x10cm, 1x13cm), cams .3-2" (used a few)

 

Approach Notes:

Fast conditions for booting—1.5 hours for the approach

[mthorman]

Nice guys! I was justing thinking about this route yesterday!

[jefetronic]

Thanks, Marlin! Go get it!

[mthorman]

I would, but I am headed up to Eldorado's NW Ice Couloir instead. Too many good routes and not enough time!

[G-spotter]

Any sign of Pinchy?

[glassgowkiss]

You have to step off the summit block to get to rap anchor.