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 Peak:  Quandary Peak
 Route:  South Gully aka Cristo Couloir
 Range:  Tenmile
 Posted By:  Tim A
 Date of Info:  5/3/2015
 Date Posted:  5/4/2015
Details

Parked at the gate, about a half mile below the dam. Reached the dam at 6am where I put on crampons and had them on all the way to the summit.

For the first two hours or so the snow was neve, excellent for cramponing. The overcast morning sky kept direct sun off the couloir until close to 830, which was great for keeping the snow firm as I continued ascending. At 830, the clouds finally burned off and the snow immediately started getting softer, even close to 14K, but it was still great for cramponing all the way up. There were a number of steps kicked into the couloir in a few different lines, most of which hung close to the left (west) side on the raised shoulder. I put a new line in straight up the middle given how great the snow was.

Reached the summit just before 9am where I hung out for half an hour waiting for the snow to cook more before glissading down. When I arrived, there was one other guy just summitting from the East Ridge, but he left shortly and I had the place to myself for about twenty minutes, which is always a rare thing on Quandary. No goats either.

At 930 I began to descend, plunge-stepping in the softer snow down off the summit block before removing my crampons for the glissade.

Conditions for this were a little trickier. Where I sat down, the slope was getting a little soft, but only the top two or three inches. I did a few practice arrests before committing and pushing off. These were fine, so off I went. However, only a few hundred feet down, I encountered a slope which was much softer, and I had some trouble arresting here. I ended up glissading down on my stomach, leaning into my axe in the arrest position to control my speed until I reached a slightly different aspect and angle that was more controllable. This starting moving a lot of wet snow, but only that directly underneath me. There was no propagation indicating a slab nor was the depth of the moving snow too concerning.

The lower 2000ft of the couloir was much easier, the snow cooking quickly into corn. I could control my speed easily with my heels. Ended up back at the dam at 10am, making for a 3 hour ascent and 30min descent. Gotta love snow climbing if for no other reason than the quick exits.

If you were one of the three people who passed me near the summit, email me at timalgate@yahoo.com. I have a number of hero shots of you guys coming up the couloir, and one of the snowboarder coming down from the parking lot.

Get out there while it's good!

Here's a video of the climb and glissade for anyone curious in what it looked like up there.
https://youtu.be/6_ekb-KwK1A



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