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Some glacier training below Castle Peak

Yesterday, Tyler, Colby, Al, and I headed up the castle creek road to do some glacier training, and possibly ski the East Face of Castle.

We started our walk about 1/4 mile below the Mace hut and made quick time up the snow-patched road under first light.  I couldn’t help but notice how warm it still felt and quickly found myself in a T-shirt.  Heading up the Pearl pass road was more patchy snow, and we finally put the skins on as the route turns and gives us our first view of Castle Peak.

We were all skeptical as to whether or not the line even had a chance of going all the way down, but my general attitude in the mountains is almost always “a day in the mountains is better than a day spent almost anywhere else.”  Yesterday was no different.  It was a gorgeous morning.  The snow above about 12,500 had a few inches of white covering our dust layer, and I got to share the day with a group of great friends.

Upon reaching the white snow it became fairly obvious that we did not receive a very deep freeze the night before.  Like is the case in just about every group I am ever in, I was “the heavy one.”  In this case I had 50lbs on the next heaviest…kill me now.  Post-holing with skis on is just plain annoying, especially when I’m the only one doing it.

I wish I would have taken a before and after picture here of Colby, Tyler, and Al floating up the slope and the trench behind me.

I was becoming more and more concerned with the snow and how it would react on a steeper slope.  While I know it is June, and usually by this time of year stuff is pretty consolidated, there was one inch of crust on top of about 2 feet of slush, with a dirt layer about halfway down.  We opted to start booting up a couloir and it only took us about 100 vertical and we’d had enough.  It didn’t feel safe, it wasn’t fun, and it the skiing wasn’t going to be worth the risk to get there.  We skied down on some funky punchy snow that had even the best skiers in our group dancing a little bit.

Tyler getting some:

Colby:  Notice the holes in the snow…

Al:

We regrouped down on the top of a small headwall of snow and decided it would be a good place to set up a z-pulley.

I should mention that Tyler and I are headed up to Rainier this coming weekend with Louie Dawson (the younger version of his paps), and Caleb Wray.  Hence, the glacier training.

First we just had Al tie into the rope and “fall” down the steeper section of the slope.  I arrested his fall and Tyler set up an anchor using a picket and an ascender.  Afterwords we set up our main anchor that consisted of one picket placed vertically and another picket burried horizontally in the snow as a deadman.  Here we attached a pulley and a prussik to the rope as a brake when we weren’t pulling.  Back down the rope we attach another ascender with a pulley to the rope and start hauling.  It’s incredible how well this works, and how much easier it is with Mechanical advantage.

Next, Tyler put his skis and skins on and Colby got to be the victim.  Arresting a fall with skis on your feet, especially in tour mode with skins is hard, it’s just plain hard.  As soon as Colby was moving down hill Tyler fell on his whippet arrested the fall.  While the snow yesterday was not great for sliding, Tyler still noted how tough it is to get your skis in a good position under you to get edge hold.  I set an anchor below Tyler using a Picket and a prussik, and we repeated the proccess.

Al and Ty hauling:

And our victim:

We packed up our packs and skied out to the Mace hut:

Thanks for reading:

JW

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1 Comment

  1. Joe B June 9, 2009

    Good luck on Rainier man, here’s hoping you get some good conditions.

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