BETA PHOTO: The Southeast Face of Flattop from Emerald Lake. ...
Description
This submission was originally part of single listing for Flattop. Due to reorganizational effort, this was split into 2 sections. The first is here.
In a fine little drainage between Hallett Peak and Flattop mountain, you will find a multitude of rock and snow/ice routes. There are many possible routes up and down Flattop (due north), Hallett (due south), and Andrew's Glacier (west).
For the purposes of organization, we'll limit this subarea to those mixed/ice routes on the southern aspect of the mountain which are approached from the Emerald Lake area.
There are at least 8 distinct routes and 2 variations here including:
Park at the Bear Lake Parking lot (newly renovated) at the end of Bear Lake Road. Hike to Emerald Lake. Skirt the lake and head up and right toward Flattop.
Dragon's Tail Couloir is the first of two couloirs on the south face of Flattop Mountain, above Emerald Lake. Snow up to 50 degrees is possible, as are a few rocky steps that may or may not be iced over. 1,500 feet of "fun" snow climbing interspersed with a couple short, steeper steps puts you near the summit of Flattop, with some incredible views of the park. Early season, it may be threatened by a cornice. ...[more]
After a week of good settlement in March '05 we snowboarded this north west facing couloir from 12,200 directly to about 11,000 ft. We tried to go back and snowboard it again in May, but the weather never softened the couloir up, so we bailed east along the top of Flattop to a northeast couloir at 12,000 down to about 10,800. This area offers excellent ski/snowboard mountaineering, but the wind and snow conditions are fickle.
Nice post Joel. .. My wife and I climbed the pictured gully on 6.18.05. It turned out to be a fun moderate snow climb to the summit of Flattop. I believe the route is described as West Couloir in Rossiter's RMNP guide. Straight forward approach, breaking off the Fern Lake trail at the junction with Notchtop and heading SW towards lake Helen and the obvious Ptarmigan glacier. The gully comes into view to the South shortly after passing Lake Helene, just East of the prominent snow fields. The climb followed an interesting gully on 40-50 degree snow, steepening to high 50s at the top. We didn't encounter any alpine ice as it was still pretty filled in with snow.
As a sidenote, looked like there were still some nice turns to be had in Notchtop couloir as viewed directly North of our position :)
I think "high 50s might be an overstatement. An accurate inclonometer reading might be helpful! Like penis length, slope angles are usually over estimated.
Flattop Mountain - S side
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