GrifCW's photostream

GrifCW's photostream on Flickr.

I want to be back in Argentina sooo bad!!! Ski season's starting here but my alas my knee... gotta rehab before the snow really starts to fall!

526984_4583853875270_963596542_n

526984_4583853875270_963596542_n, a photo by GrifCW on Flickr.

Mt. Quandary, North Couloir 06/5/2012

Mt. Quandary, North Couloir Solo-Climb/Descent

The view from the Summit of Mt. Quandary, looking Northwest

So sorry for the useless hyperbole but...

This post might make some people think that I am slightly off in the head, and I don't completely disagree.  All I am going to say about this is that there was no snow anywhere else in Colorado and many other Western States.  I wanted to ski a Colorado 14er before graduation, having missed several spring-seasons due to injuries, and there was simply no snow anywhere else last spring.

While it may surprise those unfamiliar with ski mountaineering in Colorado that May and June are most often in the perfect season for skiing 14ers.  But after the non-winter of 2012 with a hot spring in March, by May snow was so sparse you could scarcely believe that Colorado was a renowned for famous ski resorts at any time of year.  But if you looked hard enough, and were willing to take some risk, you could still accomplish something and maybe also learn something about the eco-crisis that 2012 was for the state of Colorado.

The North Couloir and the Summit of Quandary from the valley approach

The summit of Mt. Quandary in Colorado is 14,265 ft above sea-level.  However, the trailheads are all around 11,000 feet.  Mt. Quandary is one of the most popular peaks in Colorado both to hike in Summer and ski in Winter.   Thousands of people stand a top Mt. Quandary every year, probably dozens maybe over a 100 ski it as well.  This is because of its east ridge with its gentle slopes for avy-free skiing and easy hiking. 

But while Mt. Quandary is most often a bunny hill by mountain-sports standards, it does have another side.  This side consists of classic expert skiing and even some climbing terrain that is much less often explored.  Experienced alpinists have fallen to their deaths off these slopes.  By this of course I am referring to the Colorado backcountry classic, the Cristo Couloirs on the Southern side of Quandary.  This neat and somewhat aesthetic straight-shot to the summit is a classic Colorado 14er climb or ski, which Chris Davenport selected for his Quandary descente when completing his project to ski all 54 Colorado 14ers in less than one year, which he accomplished.

But there would be no snow on Southern slopes like the Cristo Couloirs or the Eastern Ridge in a spring like that of 2012.

However, the Northern side varies again.  While the Southern slopes consist of steep, straight shots from near the summit to the valley floor, the Northern slopes of Quandary are as wacky, wild, and convoluted as a Rocky Mountain could be.  The mountain bulges out to the North, with long, undulating Couloirs that change pitch and direction almost continuously.  Rock walls above them offer technical and exposed summer 14er climbing.  The only line that is really ski-able, is the giant one right in the center, dubbed the "Quandary" or 'North' Couloir.

And because it was facing North and also had steep rock walls to shade it, it still had almost 1.5 m of snow in the first week of June.

Nearing the base of the Couloir

Slept in my mountain hardware bivy+tarps next to my CRV

Instead of a traditional trip-report I have organized these photos in such of a way that you can scroll through them to get a feel moving through a long couloir on a Colorado 14er.  So starting at the top the first photos that you see are from the summit.  Its cool to start at the bottom at scroll up to get a sense of climbing the couloir

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

The steep slopes shown in the previous pictures were photographed around the  highest snowfields in this picture, not visible behind a rock wall.  The high snowfield on the right was the steepest and most exposed slope faced that day, and also my climbing/down-climbing route to the summit.

Another picture of the couloir, the previous picture was taken at the slight dogleg

All pictures in this post were taken with a Nikon Coolpix L810 Digital Camera

More Pictures of "the Whale"

Merk sent me over a couple more pictures to go with the last blog post, which I very much appreciate.

First, we have a great picture of Kyle, formerly one of the Army's top intelligence officers in Afghanistan and Iraq, and Snowboard Pro Tony navigating the exposed rocky pitches that served as our entrance into the couloir.

Second, we have a sweet shot of the Couloir from below it.  Tony is the dot shredding in the middle of it, while you can make out me on the flat below just after exiting the couloir.

The last photo is my favorite by far.  Pete skinning up in the foreground with the entirety of the whale centered in the background behind.  This picture gives you the best idea of how big, steep, and aesthetic the line was.

The Whale is the main couloir running directly from the spires in a straight line to the bottom right.  The entrance into the couloir where the first picture was taken is the exposed rocky field at the top left of the couloir, directly below the spires.  So you can see how sketchy it really was!

Thanks again to Merk for the photos, and to everyone in the crew (Chris, Tony, Kyle, Pete, anyone else?) who showed no fear on the way down, and no pain on the long hike out.

Riding the Whale

It was Tuesday August 28^th and Bariloche had seen little snow and its fair share of sun for almost a week straight (it would snow later that week).  This had removed snow from the lowest areas and ruined it up to medium elevations, but above that cooler temps had kept the snow fresh and stable.  This meant that groups were starting push further out from the “Resort’ of Cerro Catedral and take-on bigger lines.

Today my group, which consisted of snowboarder Merk, University of British Columbia student Pete “Whimsey”, ex-army special forces intelligence officer Kyle, lightning strike survivor ‘Sparky, myself and coaches Chris Coulter and Tony Pavlantos, would ski a line dubbed by SGT as ‘The Whale’.

Merk Somalia pointing towards the ‘Whale’ off the backside of Cerro Catedral near the town of San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina.  The ‘Whale’ is long and wide couloir on the far lookers-right side of the photo.

 The Whale is a lengthy but wide couloir that runs from Spires at the top of Cerro Catedral down the backside of the mountain into the valley containing part of the trail to the Frey Hut.  The Whale is accessed by a quick 30 min hike to the top off the Laguna Bowl, a side-country area that is the closest SGT playground and also this year’s grounds for a Red-Bull big mountain-freestyle competition on August 22.

The Sidecountry playground of Lagunga

From the base of the spires at the top of Laguna you have to drop over onto the steep and rocky backside of Cerro Catedral where you are completely on your own for assistance (not that the resort’s patrol is capable of an in-bounds rescue).  This required just a bit of down-climbing, but the views of the valley and all the way over to the Frey Hut were phenomenal.

Chris, Tony, and myself standing about to strap in and descend into the whale, just taking in the views.  Photo courtesy of Merk

As soon as we could we locked into our bindings, feeling more secure with planks on our feet, and one by one executed a fair bit of technical rock hopping in order to access the couloir proper.  I don’t know of anyone with pictures of this, but I would say it was decently exposed.  It was not too bad for us skiers, but some of the boarders definitely needed to take their time.

Once we were at an entrance to the couloir we regrouped.  Coultor dropped in first.  The couloir was so big that it completely screwed with your perception of its length and width.  Eventually Chris re-emerged in the distance on the valley floor, probably about 2500 feet below us.  We then dropped in one by one. The snow was old but fine and dry up top but morphed to icy crust by the bottom.  The couloir was wide enough for everyone to get some fresh tracks.  It was also wide enough that one was able to make GS turns down it, which made for a very fun run.   When I reached the group I heard Tyson from the SGT staff radio over from across the valley that he had some cool pictures of the run.  I don’t know if I’ll ever get to check them out, but maybe I’ll see them in some SGT marketing materials somewhere.

We ate our sandwiches from Tage quickly at the valley floor.  Then all that was left for us to do was to strap on our skins and begin the +2500 ft climb up the opposite side of the valley.  It was my first time using all-nylon skins and I thought they stuck my crazy-banana skis onto slopes much steeper than I would usually head directly up.  Before we knew it we were back at the top of the ridge.

We skinned up the from the valley floor to the saddle near the center-right of the photo.  From there it was an hour traverse back to the reverse.

On our skin we passed below slopes like these.  We would return the next day.

We debated hiking up a bit further and getting another lap down to the valley floor.  I was game for this, but with the weather starting to turn for the worse the group decided to begin the hour-long traverse along the far side of the ridge back to Cerro Catedral.  The traverse was too difficult, but the next one of the female riders almost had a slide for life into what was aptly dubbed ‘Mordor’ but fortunately 30 feet into her slide she stopped on a rock with only some bruises.

We all safely made it back to the resort and all in time for the 4 15 tea and pasties at our lodge.  A fine day that we would double up on the day after, after all, it would snow 10 cm that night.

526984_4583853875270_963596542_n, a photo by GrifCW on Flickr.  The next a 10 min would leads us to fresh snow and a rarely ridden zone. The chute gets narrower until its less than ski-length, then makes a dog-leg right and opens open into the couloir until you get to the spine which you can ride full steam all the way out onto the apron. yeah… it was that sweet