The week before we looked up at Temple Crag and saw a number of lines that were worthy of a return trip. The most obvious was the North Couloir. Info was sparse but from what we could gather there was a rock/ice pitch in the middle. We came prepared with heavy packs full of climbing gear and made our way up.
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| Temple Crag from the East |
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| North Couloir |
Andy said he was feeling "sendy" so he took the first lead. When I said heavy packs earlier what I meant was packs with the lightest ropes and the scantest rack imaginable. So with that light rack Andy ran out of gear maybe a hundred feet up. He belayed Tom and I up and I took the next hundred feet. Both of our leads felt much harder than they should have but we certainly aren't in any sort of climbing shape.
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| Pitch #1 - Tom Goth Photo |
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| Photo - Tom Goth |
About 500' after the rock pitches we took a dead end left hand turn that we ended up skiing back down. Once back in the North Couloir proper we scrambled past a few easy rock bands and ended topping out at a notch. We had hoped for the summit but now we all weren't feeling as "sendy" as before so we settle for a couple thousand feet of steep powder skiing. All in all our expectations were blown away.
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| Andy at the top of the wrong turn |
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| Skiing back to the main chute |
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| Back on track |
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| Andy at the notch |
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| Andy skiing down from the top of the chute. Tom rigging a short rap b/c we were to scared to down climb a 10' rock band. |
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| After the rap |
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