Partner: Ben Peters
Mileage: 20 ish
Gain: 9000' ish
Elapsed Time: 14.5 hours, ugh
Start time: 5:15 AM
Approach/deproach: Bike up 8 Mile Rd from the Icicle Creek Road to the Enchantments TH, lots of trail walking up and down past there
Ski Gear: Big skis (105's) and big boots (Zero G pro tours)
Technical Gear: Gullies and Irvis crampons. Lots of pro incl. nuts, cams, pins, sone old bail gear.
Rope: Yes, 30m dynamic and Beal Escaper
Pack: Pretty light other than the technical gear
Start: 8 Mile Road Gate
Finish: Start
Dryland: Whew, lots.
Mileage: 20 ish
Gain: 9000' ish
Elapsed Time: 14.5 hours, ugh
Start time: 5:15 AM
Approach/deproach: Bike up 8 Mile Rd from the Icicle Creek Road to the Enchantments TH, lots of trail walking up and down past there
Ski Gear: Big skis (105's) and big boots (Zero G pro tours)
Technical Gear: Gullies and Irvis crampons. Lots of pro incl. nuts, cams, pins, sone old bail gear.
Rope: Yes, 30m dynamic and Beal Escaper
Pack: Pretty light other than the technical gear
Start: 8 Mile Road Gate
Finish: Start
Dryland: Whew, lots.
After skiing this solo in 2017, I had thought to myself that I was all good on the line. What's to gain by skiing it again? It's a rather complex and dangerous one. Then my high school friend Ben Peters moved to Leavenworth. That move combined with some standard mountaineer brain had me thinking: "ok, if Ben ever tells me conditions are good and invites me over, I'll ski it again with him." Ben is a much more technically competent and experienced steep skier than I am so it's always fun to get out with him and be humbled.
Approaching from the lake, base of 1 in the background
Welp, that exact situation happened. The end of April was a terrific run of good weather, but a little over a week prior there had been some precipitation, right in the middle of one of our best corn cycles ever. Ben had been getting out and skiing high north faces off of Rte 2 and had a strong suspicion that high north facing terrain in the Enchantments would still be holding good wintery snow.
My one crappy photo from climbing the runnels
Ben would have been compelled to ski this line even if he had to drive hours to get to it. Living along the Icicle it's practically in his backyard. Considering his general enthusiasm for steep skiing, I don't think he had any choice but to ski it. He was also excited to climb the route. The climbing isn't generally that hard and I always like getting a preview of what I'm going to ski so we went for that part as well. I had climbed maybe 4 pitches of pure ice in the last 10 years, but thankfully we climbed a decent amount of ice back in our New England days so it was time to dust off those rusty skills (and make Ben lead everything, he climbs a lot more than I do).
The approach was unremarkable other than the fact that we didn't end up using skins, this is probably my largest backcountry day ever where I never skinned. We rode bikes up the road to the TH, then just took trail runners over mixed frozen snow and dirt all the way to Colechuck lake. At the lake we skated across very quickly on frozen snow, When we got to the far shore under Dragontail it seemed to make sense to go straight to crampons. Skins in the pack all day.
Booting 3, close to the top-out
We climbed an easy pitch of ice to knock the rust off right at the bottom of the first couloir, it could easily have been end-run and we did just that on the way out. It was nice to build a little climbing confidence before the exposure really ramped up. The first couloir went fast and there was even a booter for most of it. The sun had gotten to a few spots where it wasn't perfectly north facing leading to some some edgable crusts. Things seemed to be improving as we went higher.
Whenever you start to think you're a badass, there's a goat waiting to show you how soft and weak you are
We had run into a soloist and got to the runnels between 1 and 2 at the same time. We opted for the climbers left option as he took the right. The climbing was engaging, nothing very hard, but Ben was having a heck of a time finding good pro. The ice was thin and the rock featureless. More than once we were simul-climbing with just one or two questionable pieces in between. It was quite stressful at times. There were a few spots where we had to traverse on thin snow over rock that were not fun. At least most of the climbing was water ice and neve, all of which was a joy to climb. The air temp was quite warm which likely helped soften the ice and make it accept our not-so-technical tools and crampons quite well. We were both in Zero G Pro tours and I have nothing bad to say about how they climbed.
Entering the top of 3, Glacier in the background
There was a short mixed pitch to get from 2 to 3, much leaner than when I had been there previously, granted that time was on 4/1 not 4/27. 3 went quickly and we were at the notch. Some goats were hanging out on the summit and not wanting to disturb them I finally convinced Ben to opt out of the "bonus climbing" to the summit. We took a nice sunny warm break and then dropped back in.
Nice snow in 2
The exposure in 3 was just as wild as I remember, There's an edge-of-the-earth feeling to the roll off onto the long north face. The turns are downright steep too, 45 degrees at least, maybe a little more. A traverse to the skiers right at the bottom of the coulior keeps you on route and got us to our first transition. We needed to be back into climbing gear to get to a rappell anchor to get from 3 to 2. The anchor we found was also a little out of the way (skier's right) so I belayed Ben over to it. At least once we got there we could make the rap with our 30m rope folded in half.
That green ring looks familiar...
2 skied really well, nice snow and a terrific position. In no time we were down to our next transition at the rappels for the runnels. We were going to rap the climbers right side, so not what we climbed, but it's what I had used the last time and there sure weren't any anchors on the left side we had come up. Right off the bat we found my old rap anchor. I have a bunch of rings that I retire from my work as an arborist and this green DMM ring as well as the purple/gray cord with it brought me right back to 2017. It's also a reminder that an anchor can look nice and be 8 years old.
Ben Rapping the Runnels between 2 and 1
We spent a good deal of time brushing up all four anchors we ended up using to rap the runnels. We had bootie-d a bunch of old gear while climbing, so we had some extra stuff to leave even before we had to start dipping into out own gear. With just a 30 meter rope and a Beal escaper we were limited to 30 meter raps. If I was going back I would bring gear for 60m raps (60m rope and an escaper, maybe two 60's). It would just be less fuckery and less anchor rebuilding. The good news though is that the anchors are all brushed up for 30m raps at the moment, I even added a few nice red DMM rings. The escaper works really well in this sort of terrain where there's nothing for it to get caught on as it falls after leaving the anchor.
Skiing 1, just below the runnels
We transitioned back to skis just below the runnels. It's not carefree skiing at this point with a 20-50' cliff at the bottom of 1. We were also starring to get into the transitional snow. Ben charged away as he does and I made tentative turns the whole way down searching for a narrow vein of wintery snow and finding it most of the way. A short downclimb had us below the final cliff and in the clear, some terrific corn skiing had us down to the lake. Crossing the lake was a mush-fest, with every third skate breaking through a crust and into 6" of water over the ice below.
I thought you guys had bikes?
I have a couple interesting codas for this one:
1. When we got back to our bikes they were gone. We had tucked them in the woods at the start of the trail, they weren't right on the trail but maybe 50' back and visible. They were not locked. This was a significant bummer since they were nice bikes and we liked them and you know how hard it is to find a bike you like (Ben's much nice than mine). We had to walk out the whole damn road and our faith in the backcountry and backcountry people had been shaken.
2. About two weeks after this trip this happened:
1. When we got back to our bikes they were gone. We had tucked them in the woods at the start of the trail, they weren't right on the trail but maybe 50' back and visible. They were not locked. This was a significant bummer since they were nice bikes and we liked them and you know how hard it is to find a bike you like (Ben's much nice than mine). We had to walk out the whole damn road and our faith in the backcountry and backcountry people had been shaken.
2. About two weeks after this trip this happened:
First off, we did end up getting the bikes back. We could tell someone had ridden them down the hill from the tracks but lost them from there. A post on FB helped Ben locate them dumped in the woods near a campsite not far from where we had parked. This whole thing is just super weird. Either somebody stashed them and was planning to come back later and steel them for good, or they just wanted them to ride down the hill. Not cool, it's sad that now a lock has to be part of my bike approach kit.
Secondly, to the times article, it's really not very related to us other than as a reminder to be cautious using fixed anchors. We spent a good deal of time brushing up the anchors we used. We were very careful not to shock load them too. Seeing my slings from 2017 reminded me of Ryan Jenken's terrific HowNOT2 video (linked below) on old rap slings. UV is super hard on nylon and most other sling fabrics (this is likely less of a problem in a north facing couloir than it would be other places). It doesn't take long for a sling that started at 21kN to be breaking below 5kN. Even though it sounds like for the recent accident it was a gear failure rather than a sling failure it's all linked. We had 2-4 pieces of pro in every anchor and invested some real time in making things better before committing to each one.
I personally know one person who suffered a rap anchor failure in this very line. he was INCREDIBLY lucky to not only survive but to leave unharmed. We're talking one in a hundred thousand kind of odds here. Rap anchor failures are a true worse case scenario. There are so many transitions and so much fuckery on this route that it makes for a very long day even with a highly competent team. It would have been very easy to rush the anchor improvement work.
It was a super long day, especially with an extra hour of walking down the road. While the sats don't appear that intimidating, this is one of my longest days on the move in a very long while and I was both mentally and physically exhausted afterwords.
Secondly, to the times article, it's really not very related to us other than as a reminder to be cautious using fixed anchors. We spent a good deal of time brushing up the anchors we used. We were very careful not to shock load them too. Seeing my slings from 2017 reminded me of Ryan Jenken's terrific HowNOT2 video (linked below) on old rap slings. UV is super hard on nylon and most other sling fabrics (this is likely less of a problem in a north facing couloir than it would be other places). It doesn't take long for a sling that started at 21kN to be breaking below 5kN. Even though it sounds like for the recent accident it was a gear failure rather than a sling failure it's all linked. We had 2-4 pieces of pro in every anchor and invested some real time in making things better before committing to each one.
I personally know one person who suffered a rap anchor failure in this very line. he was INCREDIBLY lucky to not only survive but to leave unharmed. We're talking one in a hundred thousand kind of odds here. Rap anchor failures are a true worse case scenario. There are so many transitions and so much fuckery on this route that it makes for a very long day even with a highly competent team. It would have been very easy to rush the anchor improvement work.
It was a super long day, especially with an extra hour of walking down the road. While the sats don't appear that intimidating, this is one of my longest days on the move in a very long while and I was both mentally and physically exhausted afterwords.