Idaho Outdoors Forum: McGown North Couloir

Had a great day on excellent snow today.

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Easy Kicking Steps

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Not so easy snow crossing to reach summit

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Classic View with North Face Couloir in center

Looks good! That's painful to think of you guys... walking... back down... the other side

That slope to reach the summit is very intimidating! I remember looking over at it when we skied the couloir and thinking, "Nope! Glad I'm not going there"!

Good work! Way to get out and get after it!

Nicely done SeanGoat. Awesome photos.

Nice!
What is that,... about knee deep?

Wow, Nice! Was there a big cornice at the top of the couloir?

Impressive as usual! I definitely took the easy way up...

I figured there would be a lot of snow on Saturday and thought it might be unstable on Sunday and Monday.
Guess not.

I am really curious about some things if you don't mind a few questions. How much new snow was there? Who took the pictures? Did you make the summit? Did you glissage the east side? How long did this climb take from the car? Thanks.

Pat

Hey guys- thanks for the nice comments.

There might have been about 6-18 inches of newer snow. The steps were shin to knee deep and rarely required more than a kick. There was a little ice right at the top. I took the pictures of my friend John, and at the top of the couloir was a big block of ice that barely resembled a cornice. We bypassed it with a few hard kicks. It was by-passable on both sides. We saw some very small wet slides, but nothing much.

The traverse over from the top of the couloir to the south side was the crux, and it was steep. When we reached the south side, we corkscrewed our way around to the summit. Last signature was 2011. Old register was gone- I was bummed because I wanted to see my signature from 15 years ago. There was still snow on the south slopes. We plunge stepped down the SE slopes to the meadow below and it was very quick. Glissading might have saved 10 minutes, but we read Accidents in North American Mountaineering regularly. Car to Car was just under 9 hours for us- we were semi casual about the pace.