Colorado Backcountry: Exposure on Mt. Evans

Submitted by jp on Tue, 05/30/2006 - 11:51

jp
Mt. Evans Massif - Descents in Orange, Downclimb Red

Met up with Ffej, Trailer Tom, Mark N, Bebout and Chris up on Mt. Evans road near summit lake. The 2nd Annual Ffej's Memorial BBQ went off under bluebird skies and cold conditions. Our first attempt was to shred down the Diamond on Evan's North Face, as we reached the summit and started the sketchy down climb into the couloir things didn't look good. We were able to down climb to just below the large cave like structure at the top of the couloir, from here things looked good. This line is pretty much a no fall zone the entire way down and earlier we had watched as a skier made turns down the chute, cut lookers right hard and beater straight into a large rock -- loosing his skis and tomahawking 50 ft or so. The snow at the top of the couloir completely sucked, clouds started to block the sun which made the conditions even worse. Tom decided to drop in first and check out the snow conditions, he was forced to slide down 20 ft or so and ended up getting stuck. We talked alot about what to do and we decided the safest thing would be to ice pick our way back up the chute and hike out. We did this ASAP. The next line we attempted we found ourselves down climbing to reach the large North Face snowfield. Not much better of an approach we were very exposed high above multiple cliffs on crap snow. Very scary. We took a long time to climb down to the safe zone before getting ready to drop in. I must say this is some of the most exposed gnarly backcountry I've gotten in all year. Each step required complete concentration and focus. I know each member of the crew had a few very close calls on this expedition. Mt. Evans and the chutes are very steep and lots of cliffs, not to mention the snow conditions sucked. After lots of down climbing, setting anchors and reverse kick stepping we made it down the face to the snow covered lake at 12,500ft. We were able to make some nice turns under the afternoon sky, although the snow was variable and choppy we were very very happy to safely make it back down to Summit Lake. We packed up and moved down to Echo Lake campground and fired up the BBQ. Pictures and descent video coming soon!