Sunday,
June 3
My most regular
Monday,
June 4
We
got an early start from Heath’s place in
Locating Baker’s Way proved to be the crux of the day, as it was last year.
Last year we started at the right spot, but ended up on Kamikaze Roofs. This
year I started too low and ended up with a long and scrappy first pitch, but
ended up in the right place. I later figured out that if I’d started at the
same spot for Kamikaze Roofs and Zig-Zag, the first
pitch would have been a little cleaner, but maybe only 30’ tall. Nonetheless,
it’s still the crux of the route.
|
Starting Baker's Way (crux) |
As we were climbing as a party of 3, I brought Cooper and Heath up on my 60m
half ropes without much incident. The crux was a little bulgy, just enough to
make things interesting for these guys. From here, we re-flaked
the rope and ran out 2 more long pitches to the end of Baker’s Way on the
|
Baker's Way - typical 3rd class |
Once we regrouped on the Arête, we had our first views west into the
The afternoon was spent checking out
Tuesday,
June 5
Our
alpine start began at about 2:30AM as we shot out of bed at the Best Western
Lodge in
The trail was mostly melted out until tree-line, where we started consistently
hitting snow patches, which were not a problem until we got into the shrubs
past the mine and proceeded “off-trail” toward the couloir.
Heath was feeling whipped from the fast pace of the approach, the bit of
post-holing and the altitude, so on the last ridge before the final slope to
the lower apron of Skywalker, he decided to go back to the car. After a little
discussion, we took a couple pickets and he started his descent.
Cooper and I finished the scrambled up to the lower apron, put on the crampons
and headed up Skywalker, past some avy debris on the
left of the lower apron. The climbing was consistently on very firm snow
through the couloir all the way up to the steep
direct finish, were we broke out the rope and 4 pickets and Cooper belayed me
from a nice moat on the left. From here I led out on softer snow, just firm
enough to kick steps, any looser and it would have been a mess. I ran out the
60m half-rope putting, using four pickets in placement that I tried to stomp
firm. They “may” have held s sliding fall, but as loose as the snow was
getting, self-arrest should not have been a problem. I was wishing I had the #1
cam out of my pack, as it would have fit a couple spots and a solid piece would
have provided a little more security as we ran out the 60m and then simul’d the last 20m to the top where I was greeted with
20mph wind in my face.
|
Typical Skywalker from Approach |
I set a quick anchor by slinging a boulder and continued bringing Cooper up. As
I leaned out over the edge to snap a pic, a big gust
came through and knocked my camera out of my hand down and rocketed
it down the gully where we lost sight of it. I was pretty torn up about that,
not from a care about the camera itself, but for “junking up the place”. I am
usually the type to be leaving with others trash, not leaving anything behind.
We scrambled up to the
By the time we made it to the saddle, we were a little protected from the wind
and the sun was finally in full force. We descended the trail until we could
pick out a traverse back over to Skywalker where we searched the lower part of
the route (from the main rock headwall down) for the lost camera. We say a guy
complete his climb and ski the gully in the process. We spoke with him for a
bit, he too had not seen the camera. He agreed it was like looking for a needle
in a haystack. So I finally called it quits and headed for the trailhead where
Heath waited for us with a six-pack he bought in
We thought about going up to Estes, but instead headed back South where we
explored the area around Evans and ended up at the Morrison Inn for Mexican
food (man I love that place). Cooper and I where pretty whipped so we wanted to
climb something with a short approach on Wednesday. I thought of the “Flying W”
on
Wednesday,
June 6
Since
the road to Pikes doesn’t open until 7, we got to sleep in until 5:30 AM. Even
then, with our leisurely pace we didn’t make it to the “park” until 8:00, where
we learned the road was closed at tree-line due to high winds. This was 70m
from the pullout where we’d start our climb. The three of us racked up in
|
The “Flying W”. We took the
finger to the climbers left. |
The short approach was very tedious with lots of post-holing until the angle increased
in the bottom of the couloir. Trying to follow the
better snow conditions put us in the left branch of the gully, which we
continued up for the sake of speed, although the climbing in the middle and
right couloirs looked more interesting. The wind felt sustained at 20-30mph
with gusts that had to push 60mph. The snow ranged from firm to loose, but was
climbable throughout, which was much better than the decomposing red granite of
the one short 4th class rock step we crossed which was very loose (although the
sides of the couloir had some splitter cracks that
looked solid if one needed pro).
|
Climbing in the Lower Flying W |
Once we kicked through the top of the restriction and reached the upper
snowfield, snow conditions were a little more concerning, so we stayed to the
left and headed up a faint rib until we joined a ridge (between the “W” and the
“Bowl”) that we descended back to the car. The wind was extreme, making verbal
communication from more than a couple feet impossible. The wind did become less
sustained as we went lower, as the post-holing picked back up. At one point I
had to resort to rolling in order to stay on top of the soft snow.
Once we got to the car, a gust caught the door of the truck and pinned my legs,
another slung the door so far open I think it did a little damage. Winds were
pretty rough today!
Thursday,
June 7
Today was “snake-bit” from
the get-go. Heath had to work today, so Cooper and I planned on attempting Dragonstail on Flattop, even though the forecast was for
high winds. With the alarms set for 2AM, I was up at midnight puking for no
apparent reason. We got up anyway, loaded the car and headed up I-25 from
We spent the rest of the day doing recon for Friday. We went West on I-70 over
the divide where snow was dumping. The heaviest I’ve ever seen in June. After
we discovered that the road to Evans was closed, we checked out St. Mary’s
Glacier. There was a group practicing self arrest and crevasse rescue in full
conditions, lots of snow and very high winds, just as advertised. There was
also a bad-ass little dog named spike that made the climb up to the glacier
with us. He seemed to enjoy the conditions as he boulder
hopped and splashed through the water.
Friday,
June 8
After
reviewing some trip reports from SP.org, we decided to check out the
After much consideration due to the cold temps and still high winds, the three
of us set out at sunrise to tackle the ridge on the approach to the
|
High Winds |
Cooper and I continued cramponing across super firm
snow to the base of the couloir, where we took our
last breather. After that it was kicking steps all the way up the
|
|
|
Enlarge to see three climbers
starting the Crystal Couloir |
After briefly considering climbing St. Mary’s Glacier, we decided to can it for
the day and the trip. We spent the rest of the day, packing, shuttling Coop to
the airport and having a few beers in
Good trip. Can’t wait to do it again!
Trip
Weather
Our
conditions for the trip (as reported from the Niwot
weather station):
1 - Skywalker
2 - Flying W
3 - St. Mary's Glacier
4 -
|
Temps |
|
Wind Speed |
