[TR] North Early Winters Spire - Early Winter Couloir 4/5/2015

[jefetronic]

Trip: North Early Winters Spire - Early Winter Couloir

 

Date: 4/5/2015

 

Trip Report:

We left the car at the hairpin just after 9am (long story on the reasons for such a late start) and made quick work of the approach, arriving at the base of the route in under an hour. While the approach was baking in the morning sun, the ambient temperature was still below freezing and most of the couloir was already in the shade—we weren't too worried about conditions inside. Goran took the first chockstone pitch in the brilliant sunshine on secure neve and ran us a full rope length to a rock anchor. From there, it was most of a rope length again to get just below the crux chockstone where I got two good pins on the side of the couloir for the belay. The snow alternated between firm neve and deeper, unconsolidated fluff.

 

The crux chockstone involved a mantle and stem in a corner where a #3 fit perfectly. It then took another couple of moves with bad feet to reach above the chockstone and get a good swing into neve. The spindrift shower right then was quite invigorating. After that, it was a short ways over a mostly buried third chockstone to a cave below the cornice.

 

Options up there were daunting—right of the cornice was steep, slabby granite that looked very insecure and tough to protect, the cornice itself was quite large (we could easily stand in the cave below it and it continued another 15-20 feet or so above our heads) and we were worried that tunneling through it would cause it to collapse, and just left of the cornice was about two feet of sugary snow plastered on vertical granite.

 

I decided to do some excavating to see if there were cracks behind all that snow on the left and to see if any of the snow would hold body weight. I eventually found a crack, but also found that the snow fell off the face with very little downward force, so I started the painstaking process of aiding. It was about 30 feet to the top of the cornice and it took a good while, with feet in slings, tools hooking granite and ripping through the unconsolidated snow of the cornice. I slowly made my way up the face and eventually got a foot in the cornice that didn't punch through. With that, a hooked tool, and a back-step on the face, I was able to do a not-so-graceful beached-whale move onto the top of the cornice. I was elated.

 

I built a good rock anchor and fixed the rope for Goran to ascend. From the grunting, I could tell it wasn't easy to make his way up the rope and clean the gear, but he eventually made it and we celebrated with high fives and snacks. The summit was tantalizingly close at that point and Goran offered to head up and give the final mixed pitch a try.

 

It was exactly one 70m rope length up to the belay and Goran nailed it. After some snow, neve, and hooking, most of the pitch followed a steep gully that wasn't visible from the belay, on the left of a big corner system below a roof. Most of the climbing was with crampons and bare hands and probably went at 5.6 in the summer, but felt pretty tricky as it was in these conditions. Thankfully, the rock gear was good and we pulled up onto the summit plateau of North Early Winters Spire just shy of 3:45pm. The views were stellar and we couldn't have been happier to have pulled the whole route off.

 

The raps were much easier to find than on Cutthroat the day before and we quickly descended the gully, headed back up to the pass above South Early Winters Spire, descended with ample glissading, and were back at the car by 5pm. A truly awesome route, requiring the full back of tricks (I'd call it AI3 M4+/5.6 A1+), and an awesome cap to a perfect early-season weekend at Washington Pass!

 

A bit more of the story and more photos here.

 

 

The route from the hairpin

 

Goran on the entry pitch before we hit the shade

 

Looking down to the second chockstone exit

 

Aiding around the cornice—lots of snow to excavate to find these cracks

 

Goran jugging

 

Looking up the final pitch (the upper section is in a steep corner out of view on the left)

 

Summit!

 

Descending to the car

 

 

Gear Notes:

7 pins (used 5), set of nuts, cams .3-3" (#3 is essential), 6 screws (used none)

 

Approach Notes:

Fast booting conditions—under an hour to the route from the car

[DPS]

Nice job! I climbed this route in 1998 and I vividly recall the giant cornice. I aided rock on the left side until features ran out, then aided the cornice directly using pickets. Your suggested rating confirms what we thought; WI3-, 5.8, A1. We didn't do much dry tooling back then, pulling rock moves through a couple of those chock stones felt like 5.10 in big boots, crampons, and gloves, which we thought meant it was about 5.8 which is about M4ish.

[Lowell_Skoog]

Thanks for the memories. Gary Brill and I also passed the cornice on the left. I remember it as a fun climb. But be careful about the temperatures...

[jefetronic]

Thanks! Seems like this route doesn't get much traffic, but should, given its proximity to the road and quality. I especially liked Colin Haley's trip report from 2008, complete with a video of tunneling through the cornice.

[DPS]

I just re-read my trip report which was written in 2000, although the ascent occurred in 1998: http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=50381

[jefetronic]

Thanks for putting up such a great route, Lowell!

 

In case you didn't know, it graces the new Supertopo guide to WA Pass:

"Early Winters Couloir, only climbed a time or two every year, is a virtually unknown classic"

http://www.supertopo.com/rock-climbing/Washington-Pass-North-Early-Winters-Spire-Early-Winter-Couloir

[Trent]

Thanks for the excellent TR! I have had the route on the short list since about 10 years ago when Sepultura reported that it was worthy. Your report motivated me to get off the couch; we climbed it yesterday. Very fun!