Brian and I decided last minute to try and bag Sandy Headwall since it looked like we’d be getting a small break in the weather on Sunday. He left the house at some ungodly hour and headed up to Timberline.
Left Timberline at 3:50am with no wind and clear skies making it to the top of Palmer by 5:15 and started the traverse over to Illumination saddle. Up to this point the weather and snow conditions were great. Once we were above Palmer the wind picked up and we started getting those weird wing blown ice formations. Making it to Illumination Saddle before dawn, we roped up and refueled to wait for a little more light.
The descent onto the Reid Glacier was probably the worst I’ve seen it, blobby uneven ice all the way down. The whole West side was looking pretty blue compared to this time last year. We crossed the Reid dropping down to 8600 ft and crossed Yocum ridge. We un-roped and searched for a route across, since this was our first time crossing Yocum, we weren’t quite sure on the best route. Anyways the route we took involved an easy climb to the top of the ridge, a 45o ice traverse, then down the other side via a short steep ice runnel. I’m not sure if that’s the norm or what?
An easy crossing of the Sandy Glacier leads us to the base of the Headwall route. The first few hundred feet up was nice firm snow, after rounding a corner we could see most of the way up to the Queens Chair. This route is usually comparable to Leuthold or Reid HW just a longer approach. We were lucky enough to find 1500ft of 50-90o rime ice all the way up. We didn’t take any pictures from here until the Queens chair; this was unquestionably the hardest climbing I’ve done.
Arriving at the Queens Chair the weather had started to deteriorate to a near white-out with wind and freezing fog, nice. We made it to the summit by 4pm and hoped for an easy decent of the Old Chute, but we found only more steep rime ice to contend with. At this point Brian and I were separated while down climbing, I traversed over and found the Hogsback and descended from there. We’re still not sure what route Brian took down. Either way we both made it down and out of the clouds without incident. Having to keep the crampons on, the entire way down made for very slow going.
All in all a great climb with some very unexpected conditions and a much longer day than anticipated. We roped up for the glacier crossing but other than that we soled.
Below is a bit of the timeline that we had.
Left lodge: 3:50am
Top of Palmer lift: 5:15am
Illumination saddle: 6:30am
Across Yocum: 10:25am
Started up Sandy HW: 12:55pm
Queen’s Chair: 3:30pm
Summit Ridge: 4:10pm
Parking Lot: 7:30pm
Left Timberline at 3:50am with no wind and clear skies making it to the top of Palmer by 5:15 and started the traverse over to Illumination saddle. Up to this point the weather and snow conditions were great. Once we were above Palmer the wind picked up and we started getting those weird wing blown ice formations. Making it to Illumination Saddle before dawn, we roped up and refueled to wait for a little more light.
The descent onto the Reid Glacier was probably the worst I’ve seen it, blobby uneven ice all the way down. The whole West side was looking pretty blue compared to this time last year. We crossed the Reid dropping down to 8600 ft and crossed Yocum ridge. We un-roped and searched for a route across, since this was our first time crossing Yocum, we weren’t quite sure on the best route. Anyways the route we took involved an easy climb to the top of the ridge, a 45o ice traverse, then down the other side via a short steep ice runnel. I’m not sure if that’s the norm or what?
An easy crossing of the Sandy Glacier leads us to the base of the Headwall route. The first few hundred feet up was nice firm snow, after rounding a corner we could see most of the way up to the Queens Chair. This route is usually comparable to Leuthold or Reid HW just a longer approach. We were lucky enough to find 1500ft of 50-90o rime ice all the way up. We didn’t take any pictures from here until the Queens chair; this was unquestionably the hardest climbing I’ve done.
Arriving at the Queens Chair the weather had started to deteriorate to a near white-out with wind and freezing fog, nice. We made it to the summit by 4pm and hoped for an easy decent of the Old Chute, but we found only more steep rime ice to contend with. At this point Brian and I were separated while down climbing, I traversed over and found the Hogsback and descended from there. We’re still not sure what route Brian took down. Either way we both made it down and out of the clouds without incident. Having to keep the crampons on, the entire way down made for very slow going.
All in all a great climb with some very unexpected conditions and a much longer day than anticipated. We roped up for the glacier crossing but other than that we soled.
Below is a bit of the timeline that we had.
Left lodge: 3:50am
Top of Palmer lift: 5:15am
Illumination saddle: 6:30am
Across Yocum: 10:25am
Started up Sandy HW: 12:55pm
Queen’s Chair: 3:30pm
Summit Ridge: 4:10pm
Parking Lot: 7:30pm
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