| Peak(s): |
"Grand Traverse Peak" - 13,063 feet |
| Date Posted: | 06/28/2016 |
| Date Climbed: | 05/03/2016 |
| Author: | bjornbauerphoto |
| Peak(s): |
"Grand Traverse Peak" - 13,063 feet |
| Date Posted: | 06/28/2016 |
| Date Climbed: | 05/03/2016 |
| Author: | bjornbauerphoto |
| Skiing the Grand Traverse |
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Skiing The Grand Traverse of the Gore Range | May 3, 2016  Distance: 8mi Gain: 4,400ft Time: 10hrs Transitions: 4 Team: Björn Bauer, Erik Warmenhoven, Jake Cummings Every mountain is chosen for a reason. Some for beauty, some for difficulty, some for friends we've lost. 4:45 am "Yo, here's a pair of crampons. Keep them in the case. Shits sharp, it'll poke holes through everything in your pack." Jake was leaving for LA in three days after spending most of his ski season recovering from an injury. Erik was graduating from CU Boulder in three days. This was the window to ski a life-long dream. A year earlier I looked at Logan and asked, "seriously, we're gonna ski that?". We had just descended a 'Y' shaped couloir a few miles down the valley from Vail's iconic Grand Traverse. That had been a close call. Logan, on his first steep descent on alpine skis after telemarking for over a decade, had exploded on the rocky wall of the crux: a 60 degree constriction no more than three feet wide. He pointed it, cut right on ice, and ejected from the Dynafit heel piece. True to his reputation, Logan pulled it together and made it down smooth and laughing. Now he wanted to ski something with twice the approach, twice the vertical relief, and four times the consequence. I had known him less than two years, but mutual respect and trust spoke of a lifetime. "Well shit, pussies will never be heroes..."  My headlamp on Erik, capturing more or less what we could actually see in the first hour of the approach 8:00 am Sunrise is around 6am, but when you're in the bottom of a valley at 9,000ft and staring at 13,000ft summits, sunrise is much later. Just after 8am we walked into the sun. Erik, Jake and I hollered like lunatics as we dropped packs for breakfast. To us, wilderness is too sacred a place to stay quiet. Soaked with sweat we looked at the face of Grand Traverse Peak. The sun had yet to touch anything but the highest cornice on the ridge. "Well, we're not in a rush now". Erik had been up here earlier in the season with myself and a few others. Our approach had been slow and we turned back from the higher bowl due to an intimidating slab and rising temperatures. The second approach in a year brought us up an hour faster and the snow was frozen solid. We would have to wait to ski, but first things first: climb.  Erik points out potential line choices as Jake works on his tan 10:00 am Transitioning is a bitch when it's steep. We took our time getting to the base of the lowest cliff. A pocket offered a good spot to transition, but unattended gear can still slide downhill. Erik trundled debris blocks while I showed Jake how to put on Crampons. Jake is a professional skier, or as close to a professional skier as any of us. He has been a paid athlete on sponsored teams, competed, and spent time messing up his body in terrain parks and training camps. Logan had talked about his skill, and I in turn talked to Jake about transitioning to the backcountry, but this was something else. A park skier entering ski mountaineering? Insane. Luckily I had seen Jake rip steep, cliffy terrain a few weeks earlier. And this whole trip had been his idea anyway. "Dude, the crampon just popped off". Jake was using my old strap-binding crampons. It took some finagling before we got them attached solidly and began the battle up the steeps. I couldn't tell if he was scared or not, but going up that face for the first time with iffy gear must had been trying if not terrifying. A year before I hurriedly kicked steps past Logan, rushing to get ahead and take photos looking back down. It looked like our line went up moderate terrain to the top but we weren't sure. Neither of us had done something like this before. Our ropes, cams, stoppers, picketts, and harnesses weighed us down but we'd rather be safe than screwed.  Erik and Jake kick steps up from our transition spot a few hundred feet below the cliff to skiers left 10:30 am "I think this is it. Erik, we should angle left, right?". Directional confusion aside we angled left. This was the point where we left Logan's line. From a thousand feet below we had picked a route that angled left up to the true summit, but as anyone might know things look different up close. A wide view of the route looked as though we would commit to a long traverse under the southern ridge but we were going more straight up. The sun was loosening up snow on the exposed rock above and small balls of ice were hurdling down around us. One piece went right past my head and hit my shoulder. It was small, but I could feel how fast it was moving. We needed to get up before those chunks were made of rock. The middle of April 2015 had been warm and dry, creating the stable conditions ski alpinists look for while quickly drying up lines that would be otherwise skiable. This is something both Logan and I learned on our trip up to the Traverse. We picked the easiest, cleanest line and went straight up. A few hundred feet from the ridge the snow ran out and we dug crampons into dirt, axes into rocks. By the time we reached the ridge we were exhausted. The summit was only a few hundred feet above us, but with no skiable line we agreed the quickest way to beer was to stop climbing.  Angling lookers left from Logan's line we climbed up the chute we thought would take us to an exposed traverse 11:00 am Good, not great - the only way I can think to describe the snow we kicked into. We would hit solid ice to hard snow in places but the majority of the surface was an inch thick sun crust on top of deep, soft snow. Postholing on a steep slope isn't fun. I wished for the surface to ice up while chunks of snow would release and drop past us. Energy levels plummeted as the insides of our ski shells ran with sweat. Crack - a large chunk of snow snapped off a cliff to the right and hurdled down the now bottomless chute. I nearly fell backwards as Jake uttered a few choice words from a few steps behind me. "Dude, this is messed up. What do you want to do?". It wasn't the first time one of us hinted at bailing. "Let's get up over that horizon and see what we can see", I said. We should be at the ridge by now. Our traverse left had been below us and we passed it without noticing. At nearly 13,000ft we were tired, pausing to breathe every few steps and pulling off sunglasses to clear them of sweat. Logan and I skied the line with no clear top, clipping into bindings on small pillows of flat grass growing on the 50 degree hillside above a roll-over. Emotion ran from terrified to thrilled to pure elation. As we exited the bottom of the chute our turns opened up, flying over buried scree fields screaming with the first exhalation in minutes. Adrenaline gave way to an untouchable happiness as all of life became so free and pure we believed we could float in the rapture of the high mountains forever. In our minds we were heroes. A month later Logan died while kayaking in Washington.  Logan halfway up our first line on the Grand Traverse on April 14, 2015 More than memories and stories, Logan left behind an intense drive to pursue life in every capacity. This, maybe more than anything, had a resounding impact on his friends. I watched as we all came together and pursued the things Logan loved, then returned to our daily lives with big ideas in mind. Over the past year I have seen more people get after the things they truly love and make them feel alive than ever before in my life. That is what Jake, Erik and I were doing. 11:20 am We rolled over the ridge to find we were exactly where we wanted to be. What looked like a traverse left from far below the face was actually a curve in the mountain. When we thought we had missed our turn we were in fact on it, climbing straight up to the summit. To put it plainly, we were happier than pigs in shit.  Erik looks down on Vail as we reach the top of the climb 11:30 am The summit was a hill of snow. I postholed ahead to take a few photos looking back at Erik and Jake. They yelled at me to hurry up, but each step made the world spin as I sucked for air that wasn't completely there. Near the top I dropped to hands and knees to have a look over the edge but something was wrong. The realization hit me like a speeding car: this was snow, and it could very well be free-hanging over the 1,000ft cliff I knew was on the other side. My sweat ran cold. I imagined the sensation of the snow beneath me giving way as I floated. But float is the wrong word. Fell. I would be falling a long, long way down. "Holy crap that was scary". The tedious process of dropping my pack with skis attached, anchoring the shoulder strap to my planted ice axe, and zipping open the pocket to grab my avi probe gave Erik enough time to gasp his way up to me. Before I could poke around to see where the ground ended and sky began Erik crawled forward and looked over. "Whooooohoooooooooooo". A trip up the peak the summer before leant memory of the cliff to Erik. There was a steep slope above the start of the sheer cliff. It was enough to hold snow. Between removing crampons and putting on layers we chug water and chow on snacks. The three of us worked in silence, getting ready for the descent while taking in where we were, what we had just done, and what we were about to do.  Erik and Jake make their way to join me on the summit. Our line is directly photo right of Jake 12:00 pm Floatin' So much can be said for how we say goodbye to our friends, but sometimes we never get the chance. While we can't change things that have happened we can create the best ways to move forward. Seven hours from our homes to the highest mountain around, covered in sweat and sunburn, buttcheeks puckered for the ride down we are about to take: that is the perfect ceremony for a goodbye. Logan took flight on the wind above our home, floating on the rapture of the high mountains. Now we needed to ski to burritos and beer. After all, Logan was about to turn 21. 12:10 pm Puckered, primed, and big pimpin. We dropped into the rock entrance of the top chute. It was steep, icy, and I didn't take a single breath as I watched Erik's and Jake's first few hop turns. They were solid, but you can't help being nervous at the top of a 1,400ft no-fall zone. We leapfrogged from safe zone to safe zone down the upper chute, favoring sun-softened snow to the icy crust lurking in the shadows. Linking more than a few hop turns in a row demanded lengthy breaks. The amount of energy required to ski after such a large hike was staggering. Eventually the cliffs opened up and we stood on an open face. Below us was Logan's line down the lower 'S' couloir we had ascended a few hours earlier. It was full of debris and would have been unpleasant under our skis. We had planned to cut right, sneak between two slabby cliffs, and charge into the open bowl below. By all means it was still a no-fall zone, a no-fall zone you couldn't help but tear up. Erik dropped first and Jake followed. The mountains echoed shouts and screams as they ripped through the sneak and around the bowl towards our exit line.  Erik Peter Pans his shadow near the top of our line   Jake looking for the softest snow  Erik completes powder 8's. Jake leads with a faceplant 3:00 pm Jake's dad met us in the parking lot on his bicycle. He had watched our summit and descent with a spotting scope from just outside of Vail Village. "One hell of a good job", he kept saying. He was excited as we were. In the hours that followed we ate our burritos, drank our beer, and showed photos and videos to our friends and family. Jake had decided to ski the Grand Traverse during his last days in Colorado and Erik in the midst of chaos just before graduating college. We got after something we truly love and enjoy.  Approach (Red) Descent (Blue) Logan's Line (Green)  The route heading north from I70  An overview of the route Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow): 
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