[TR] More snow lake ice - thu dec 22

[jstreet]

Went back to the far end of Snow Lake last Thursday (dec 22) with Matt, exploring for more ice to play on.

Went up the gully 500-600 feet, a little higher than "coldiron" and company did recently

(as reported in the WA ice conditions thread... See their report)

 

Our goal was to do a line that finished on the obvious fat flow over the cliff top.

 

Here's a view of our chosen line taken on a prior recon...

a very fore-shortened view of both pitches of the route, makes it look shorter and steeper than it really is

the route rambles up then left, up then left thru lots of snow ledges

 

Near the base of route the morning of the climb

We started the route in a gully just out of view to the right

 

Starting up the 1st pitch

 

Matt at the belay for pitch #2

 

 

The view down at the lake from the belay for pitch #2

 

 

Heading up the 2nd pitch

A long snow ramp leads to a short but sweet ice flow

 

 

Matt topping out

 

We nick named the route "Steppenwolfe" and it seemed like WI-3 to us.

 

After topping out we traversed up and left and rappeled into an area a few hundred feet further up the gully.

The following photos are taken from left to right all from nearly same location... showing this area

all the routes in this area are 20-30m high with tree anchors within 50m from comfortable belays

 

By chance we rappeled down this interesting line

 

Closeup of the line under our rappel... I'm calling it "Dracula"

 

 

We climbed the route in the center of the photo below...

nicked name it "Squeeze Play" ... it had a few rock moves ... felt like WI-4 M3 to us

it was more more exciting than it looks... some tricky akward moves

 

The 2nd pitch of "Steppenwolfe" ... which starts a couple of hundred feet below

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 27, 2011 by jstreet

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Nice, Jeff & Matt. You guys have been getting after it.