Consolation (Sur)Prize

Pacific Peak, but not via the North Couloir

After my success on The Citadel, it was time to attempt something bigger and badder: the North Couloir on Pacific Peak. Pacific is one of my favorite Colorado mountains; a tall, shapley peak in a beautiful area with some nice ridges and a compact summit at just shy of 14,000' (and thus nobody has ever heard of it). The North Couloir is a steep 1000' of snow/ice climbing that I've been looking forward to for a long time.

It didn't start out terribly auspiciously: the last half of my drive to Breckenridge was through intermittent rain. I've been to the Spruce Creek area several times before, but never in the summer. My trusty Subaru managed to get all the way to the 4x4 parking area at 11,000', though there was some excitement. I met up with Jon and Jamie and quickly sacked out for an alpine start.

To my surprise, Jared and Jen pulled up just as Jon, Jamie, and I (yes, that's four 'J's and a 'C') were packing up for our 4am departure. It hadn't gotten very cold in the night and we were currenly enjoying a light early-am drizzle, but we figured we'd driven all this way and might as well at least take the gear for a walk. Approach featured a great deal of thrashing through willows, occasional postholing, and general confusion (it's a *confusing* drainage with at least half a dozen lakes of various sizes). The sun rose and the weather was still pretty grim-looking with a good breeze and a cloud deck hovering around 13,000'. Things weren't looking good.

Sunrise over clouds and one of the many Mohawk Lakes.

Dramatic lighting on the approach.

After two and a half hours, we got to the head of the cirque and caught brief glimpses of the numerous towers and chutes Pacific's North and East ridges between shifting clouds. The problem with the North Couloir is that the first half climbs directly beneath a persistent cornice before making a left turn and climbing steeply to the summit. The cornice was embedded in clouds and we didn't fancy the idea of climbing below something meanacing and invisible. Plus, the snow was soft enough it looked like sketchy going. Climbing the route was probably not wise. We hemmed and hawed and debated our options.

The north cirque of Pacific Peak. The North Couloir starts on the right behind the jutting finger of rock. The critical cornice is up there in the fog. Consolation Couloir is the continuous line on the left. The summit is lost in the clouds to the right of center (photos by Jon).

One option was a nice, mellow-looking couloir a bit left of the main route. Through the shifting cloud deck, we could see all the way to the top of it and saw no hazards to navigation. Jared and Jen decided to bail out, but Jamie, Jon and I figured we'd at least give this route a shot before descending back down a likely looking snowfield on the east ridge we'd seen on the approach. The route was hence dubbed the Consolation Couloir.

Jon and Jamie in the narrows of Consolation.

...and again nearing the top.

Despite being the consolation prize, it was actually a pretty nice climb; about 500' of 40 degree snow steepening to perhaps 45-ish towards the top. An interesting alternate branch departed near the top on the right side which Jon dubbed the Miss Congeniality Finish. After 20 minutes of fast climbing, we topped out on the east ridge with no change in the weather. Being only 400' from the summit, we figured why not go bag one of my favorites in the state, even with none of the fantastic views.

The weather was cloudy, but not otherwise threatening, so we lounged on the summit for 20 minutes hoping maybe things would clear up a bit and give us a bit of a view... and it did! With great excitement, we watched peaks appear for a second and then disappear. Finally, we could see cloud banners shredding off the peaks on all sides, whisps of clouds running for cover in the valleys below, and sunshine everywhere. Glorious! We hopped around like crazed idiots, exclaiming, taking photos, and marveling at our good luck.

Trudging talus in the fog.

Clouds shredding off Atlantic and Drift Peaks.

Pacific Tarn and Quandary Peak.

Much pleased at our luck and the now-beautiful conditions, we started the descent... which was unfortunatley arduous. The hike down to the plateau at 13,400' to the top of our descent snowfield went smoothly enough. But we discovered that the snowfield was a lot taller and steeper from above than it had appeared from below! Jon started plunge-stepping down and quickly kicked off a small wet slide. Option B was to work our way down the rocky rib at the east end of the snowfield... which cliffed out pretty dramatically in short order. Option C was to scramble down a thousand feet of nasty 45 degree scree gully which didn't look too bad from above but (after we'd committed to it) proved to be horrible and dangerous in every way. Half-way down the scree, we transitioned to some equally steep snow with a nasty runout and downclimbed that the rest of the way to the valley.

Jamie and I mincing down the scree (photo by Jon). Every rock in this photo is loose.

Pacific Peak (right) and it's east ridge. We intended to come down the broad snowfield in the center, but opted instead for the gully on the far left. Not recommended.

Back on safe ground at last, we made our leisurely way out through what turned out to be a surpassingly beautiful valley. We recognized almost nothing from our approach and spent more time slogging through bogs and in a general confusion over where the trail(s) were. The hikers were out in force similarly wallowing in the mud and snow.

Near the end, we happened across a guy carrying a cigar and an aluminum baseball bat.
"What's the bat for?" I asked him, puzzled.
He looked at me like I was some sort of idiot. "Wild animals."
I don't know what he was expecting to find up there in the way of fauna; the biggest I'd seen were a couple of marmots and a few medium-sized dogs. (I presume the cigar was also for the wildlife, but I didn't ask.)

Even though Pacific's North Couloir remains untainted by my presence, we salvaged a very satisfying climb out of it, saw something new, and scored some quality summit time on one of the best peaks in the area on what turned into a spectacular day. It was also a pleasure to climb with two new and highly-compatible partners.

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