Longs/Meeker/Martha condtions

There is a LOT of snow up in the Longs cirque right now - about 8-12" on top of an old 4ish" thick melt-freeze crust on high altitude S. facing slopes. Good news is that there's a pretty much straight-line trail on packed snow from treeline to Chasm Junction (base of MLW East Ridge). Bad news is it looks like routes like Dreamweaver, The Notch/Kieners, etc. are at least couple of weeks away and maybe more. No ice visible on DW or Flying Dutchman, two body-length sections of ice on Martha. Chasm Lake is still frozen with about 8" of snow on top. I wouldn't do anything north-facing for a while and Martha would have been dicey avy-wise if it was warmer or sunnier (cold/cloudy today after about 11AM with snow and major clouds starting around noon or 1). I'd be very surprised if there is any ice (rather than deep snow)on other S-facing slopes right now, but I could be wrong - post-up if you went for a walk today!

See photos below...

Thanks for the beta Kevin. A friend and I skied up to Arrowhead and climbed the Hourglass Couloir (N. Facing) yesterday. We were groveling in style! Lots of physical snow wallowing and drytooling. The only ice we found was on the 3rd pitch chimney, which was a lot of fun. I was psyched to have my skis with me for the approach and descent.

Hourglass Couloir on Arrowhead.



Ryan swimming up to our first belay.



Looking down the easy snow from above the first pitch - which was definately the crux in it's current shape. It involves climbing over three significant chockstones.



2nd Pitch



Above the chimney.



Swimming up the final pitches.

Thanks for the beta boys. Ran up Dead Dog this morning, hope to get to the park early in the week.

EDIT: Dead Dog was good, not totally consolidated but stable early. Wet slides were starting by 10am. Be wary driving up the road in the AM, make sure you can get down in the afternoon. There is one *stuck* FJ up there.

Kevin L., thanks for the beta! That one is definitely on my list. I feared we would find the conditions you did, plus my friend from NM didn't bring his skis, so we picked the more accessible Martha. "Arduous" is how my fried described our route in current conditions.

Good on you guys for getting after the Hourglass!

Also thanks for the info on DD Chris!

One more pic, the second ice step on Martha, first one is similar, maybe a bit shorter...

Kevin, thanks for the post...however I can't imagine skiing up or down those steep, thick glades that rise out of glacier gorge up to shelf lake. I have done this approach a handful of times in both summer and winter and it seems like there are a ton of obstacles and some routefinding. How did you manage?

We watched an avalanche cascade down The Notch for a good 30 seconds yesterday, just kept flowing down the route and over the lower flanks of Longs........

There were 2 guys going to try Kieners, but we don't think they even got up Lambs Slide.

AND MORE snow is on the way........2 feet of spring wetness coming our way......

Yes it is still like winter up there......

We dug a test pit for fun, and found some scary stuff...

Great pictures of Hourglass. You should post those in the route database for future reference.

I climbed Martha on Saturday and will vouch for there being a ton of unconsolidated snow right now. The ice that is there is ok but the route had a constant flow of spindrift and that added a bit of challenge to the conditions. I got off the route early before the sun really got into the gully and it was still cold. Sun and warmer temps might make the whole thing sketchy right now.

MarkC wrote:I climbed Martha on Saturday and will vouch for there being a ton of unconsolidated snow right now. The ice that is there is ok but the route had a constant flow of spindrift and that added a bit of challenge to the conditions. I got off the route early before the sun really got into the gully and it was still cold. Sun and warmer temps might make the whole thing sketchy right now.

Yepper, we climbed it on Sunday, and found a steep snow climb with 2 ices steps and a minor ice/snow constriction. We were easily able to solo up to the last ice step. The slope above the climb was indeed warming up and getting sketchy in terms of avy potential. Spindriftorama. Start early.

Ha! Great pic!

Chris, I'll upload that photo of Hourglass Couloir to the route's beta page tonight.

Looks like a lot of folks had a great weekend in the Park! Another couple of feet expected to fall this week. Jeeze.

climbed Martha today, it was in great shape with lots of ice on the crux steps. The snow was in good shape as well, minimal post-holeing. We got to the summit just before a white out blew in that made the descent a little heads up.

also - to the right of Martha is this thing...



get after it!

We went on Wed the 5th. We had gusts up to 60mph at dawn but once we were there, the winds settled down. If anyone finds that Tibloc, Tom would probably like to have it back, thanks.

Thanks for the laugh........

Finding a Tibloc up there..........

WOW >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>..

Should jump out at ya ;)

Probably should go in ice conditions but FYI, lincoln falls is still fatty fat fat. Nothing harder than 3+/4- to be found but lots of good condition ice still.

It's gonna be awhile before any lost gear surfaces I think... lots of snow... and more tonight with a potential 2 foot dump coming!

Be safe up there!

Buster,

I can't tell from your pic how long that "new" line is next to Martha. Any idea?

Chris Sheridan wrote:Great pictures of Hourglass. You should post those in the route database for future reference.

Kevin, if you repost those photos, be sure to post the route-line shot so it will blow up a bit larger. If I'm not mistaken, it's showing the line of Sister Sweetly, a harder route to the right of Hourglass that's rarely (almost never) climbed. Maybe this is the year?

And, as someone else asked, did you really ski up and down the headwall below Lake Solitude? Steep! I've been up in that cirque twice in spring and thought the approach/descent of that headwall was the most dangerous part of the day. Wet snow over granite slabs. Yuck.

Kevin and I did skin up that headwall. We found mostly super-firm conditions on way up, with some powder in the trees. Kudos goes to Kevin for setting as fine a skin track as possible. Way steep skinning in some spots. On the way out, what we hoped was going to be powder turns had become grabby breakable crust, but still much faster than booting it.

We had hoped to try a trip up there this coming weekend. So how much more fresh stuff did Tuesday's system add to the high country? How's it look like it's gonna bond to the existing snowpack?

Lumpy and Eldo rock are probably also wet now?
thx

This was showing bare ground yesterday... you can pretty much assume that there is more accumulation at the higher elevations, and it looks to be continuing.