7/26/2017 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 7/29/2017, By: JasonKline Info: Summer conditions. Snow was easily avoidable. Not much snow on the Aetna Grand Couloir. There were a fair number of downed trees on FS230C leading to Hoffman Park, but it didn't take long to go around them. |
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5/14/2017 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 5/14/2017, By: cardgenius Info: Good conditions in The Grand. Still snow on the summit for a ski decent. Off the summit ridge it was a little crusty but had nice corn after that the whole way down. A couple sections are getting thin down low so it might not be continuous for too much longer. Not much of a booter until the final 3-400ft. Avy debri from a cornice fall on the SW ridge of the couloir. |
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5/6/2017 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 5/8/2017, By: Rainier_Wolfcastle Info: Still had to park on dead-end road right by snowmobile rental. I tried driving up the road, but its pretty much solid snow starting 0.2 miles in. Climbed Grand Couloir, ridge to Taylor, descended SW Ridge back to road (see Britt's TR from a few years ago for route). Started at 4:30am, down by 1, carried snow-shoes but was never close to needing them. Couloir is melting out faster then I would have thought...but was perfect on this morning. SW Ridge of Taylor was dry to treeline. Solid 1-3 ft of snow in trees. |
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6/4/2016 Route: From Taylor Posted On: 6/4/2016, By: illusion7il Info: The Ridge between Taylor and Aetna is about 50% Dry / 50% snow. Trekking pole or ax could be useful for ascending the Aetna East Ridge. Flotation not necessary, Defiantly bring Gaiters. See pics |
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6/3/2016 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 6/3/2016, By: jasayrevt Info: Echoing Grover's sentiments on GC. Conditions are in for this route with reaching the summit successfully. Variable, still a decent amount of snow around. There are many high-quality lines that will go. Angle definitely steepens towards top. But, completely manageable. Alpine start mountaineers. Flotation not needed. Bring traction / ice axe though. Left tracks that can be very clearly followed. Stay safe. Make a trip up and enjoy the great outdoors. Pictures included for beta |
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5/28/2016 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 5/30/2016, By: Grover Info: Went up the Grand Couloir on Saturday and snowboarded down. Or maybe it should be called the Baby Grand Couloir at this point, because there is a big section of the lower apron that has melted away. There was a solid freeze on Friday night, so the snow in couloir was firm on Saturday morning. I was able to walk up the road on frozen snow, and I was able to walk up the right hand side of the couloir, on the rocks, until further up into the couloir. If you are/were thinking of getting this before summer, I would suggest you get it very quickly, before more snow disappears. If you are headed up FR230 with modified 4x4 (i.e not stock), you can punch through two snow banks and get to a nice, flat parking area (to park or camp). If it were not later in the evening on Friday (~10:30 pm), I would have tried to punch through those two bands to get to that nice spot. Beyond that, snow coverage on the road gets deeper and deeper, and you will need flotation coming out (I skinned out using my splitboard). Note, when I encountered two day hikers after my ride down to the road, they stated they saw a bear cross the road just ahead of them. |
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4/4/2015 Route: grand coulior Posted On: 4/5/2015, By: jeremy27 Info: climbed the grand coulior yesterday. snow along the entire route but suncups and runnels down low. we took the tundra for a while about halfway up. above about 13k the snow was super firm and in excellent shape for cramponing, almost to the summit. failed to really soften up all day. I suspect the bottom portions won‘t last long. good luck. |
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4/26/2014 Route: East face, Grand couloir Posted On: 4/26/2014, By: SnowAlien Info: Grand couloir is still in, but is getting thin (considerably less full than last year around this time). In view of that, we chose to ski the East face. Due to cloud cover and wind the snow never warmed up, making conditions "interesting" on steeper terrain. Massive amounts of red dust is a major factor, likely contributing to rapid snowmelt. Pic 1: Skin up Taylor Pic 2: Aetna East face from Taylor Pic 3: Grand coulor from Aetna |
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4/11/2014 Route: SW Ridge/Grand Couloir Posted On: 4/12/2014, By: KyleS Info: FR230 has snow coverage all the way from the trailhead, but it was well frozen when we left the car at 5am and we ended up carrying our snowshoes all the way to the base of the couloir where we stashed them. We started up the couloir at 7:30am on supportive snow and gained the southwest ridge at treeline. There‘s a swath of wind-packed snow on the ridge between the cornice and rocks that was perfect for crampons, but one of us scrambled up the loose class 2+ rocks instead with no problems. The 30 mph winds made things interesting with snowboard sails on our backs, but it also kept the snow from warming up too much and we didn‘t see any warning signs of wet slide danger the whole day. We made it to the summit at 11am. On the descent, the top 500 vertical feet of the couloir was hard-packed by the wind, but doable. Below that was soft corn that made for great turns, especially on skiers right. The road had turned to mashed potatoes, but with judicious use of poles, we were able to snowboard pretty much the entire way back to the car. We made it from summit to car in 45 minutes. |
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4/6/2014 Route: Grand couloir Posted On: 4/9/2014, By: SnowAlien Info: As viewed from Monarch pass |
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5/12/2013 Route: Grand Couloir Posted On: 5/13/2013, By: BobbyFinn Info: From ~11.2k to ~11.9k we had intermittent postholing on ~2 to ~5 inch crust over wet, faceted snow. We bailed out of the couloir to the ridge on climber's right at 11.9k. This sucked. Don't do it. It would be better to take the climber's left ridge. There was a weak freeze the night before our hike. It got very warm on 5/12, but the couloir needs more time and more hard freezing. There was evidence of multiple wet slides in the couloir coming from the ridge on climbers left. They were sliding on a dust layer. We did not need snowshoes for the approach road. Pic 1 - Aetna Grand Couloir from Monarch Pass on 5/11/13 Pic 2 - Grand Couloir from about 10.9k ish. |
