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Topic: June 15, 2008 Summerland to Cowlitz Chimneys traverse (Read 1660 times)
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Pete A
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This tour was heavy on the traversing, rather light on the turns, but it was still a fun trip with some cool views of Rainier and the Sarvant glacier/Cowlitz Chimneys area. Becky, Nate, Kirsten, Anastasia, Marcus, Andy and I started from Fryingpan Creek TH, up through Summerland, past Panhandle Gap to Cowlitz Chimenys, over to Owyhigh Lakes and out via the northeast side of Tamanos/Owyhigh Lakes trail.
Easy travel to Summerland and on up to Panhandle Gap (lots of nice tracks all over Meany Crest from folks the day before). From Panhandle we just started touring east along the high divide above the Sarvant glaciers. The north facing snow wasn't all that consolidated from the previous week's storm, so we didn't opt for any yoyos onto the Sarvant glacier side of the divide. There were a few spots along the way where access could be gained down to the Sarvant glaciers without a rappell/jump, but most of the chutes we saw were guarded with big cornices. A few boulder tosses into the chutes showed the snow was rather sloppy and not worth the rappelling shinanigans needed to get in to them.
Shortly after lunch we arrived at the Cowlitz Chimneys...the snow coverage high along the ridge is going fast and we got within about ten feet of the col before de-skiing and scree-crawling. The top of the big east couloir had an almost continuous cornice between 5ft to 10ft tall....the further south we went, the smaller the cornice was but the snow was rather icy in the shade of the Cowlitz Chimney. Some opted for rapping the cornice and some opted for the no cornice but icy entrance but eventually we all got into the chute and continued the tour.
The couloir had puked all the new snow recently and there was a fair amount of debris to weave through. The snow got better and cornier the further down we went. There were a few moats and glide cracks starting to show along the fringes.
After skiing the couloir to the flats at 5400ft we booted up the divide between us and Kotsuck Cr. drainage (still all snow to gain the divide, but the top bit may melt out soon). A few turns into Kotsuck basin and then some shuffling along using the one skin on, one skin off scoot brought us past Owyhigh Lakes and around the side of Tamanos until we saw signs of the trail. From there we skied the trail till we ran out of snow at about 4800ft. Changed back into trail runners and hiked the remaining mile or two down to the Owyhigh Lakes TH where we'd left a car that morning.
Traverse stats approx 12 miles, 5000vf.
edit- finally added some pics.
just beyond Panhandle Gap
rope or jump entrance to one of the Sarvant glacier chutes?
Sarvant Glacier from above
more traversing
nearing the Chimneys
heading down the Cowlitz east couloir
near the bottom of the couloir
view back of the Chimneys
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« Last Edit: 06/16/08, 09:58 PM by Pete A »
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Marcus
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Another great tour and a fantastic day for it, to boot. I'd love to get back there for perfect corn top to bottom, but what we got was pretty damn good.
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Teleskichica
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Posts: 311
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Very cool trip it sounds like. I suspect we were watching you from up above Ruth thinking what a nice tour that would be, too.
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Livin' high on the cold smoke!
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kam
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i want photos! feed me now.
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What do you mean you didn't bring skis?
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Marcus
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The line off the back, post cornice shenanigans... Pete, let me know if you've got other photos you want to post and I'll take this one down...
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Pete A
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pics added...
Marcus, thanks for feeding Kam 
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« Last Edit: 06/16/08, 08:03 PM by Pete A »
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Robie
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double extra nice !
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"I bought my rope at Walmart ,my gloves at costco but paid dearly for my dynafits"
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kam
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yum! nice photos!
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What do you mean you didn't bring skis?
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Nate R
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Nice pics and a really scenic tour. It was really cool to explore that side of the mountain. And the snow coulda been worse, that's for sure. Thanks for a fun day. Here are Kirsten's and my pics:
http://www.evilfungus.com/trogs/sarvant08.html
I few of the thumbs here:
 
 
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Joedabaker
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Posts: 1005
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Very nice tour plan!
Looked like a fun group and a lot of fun!
Should have skied the Tamanos chute on the way out. 
I have a couple pictures from my tour looking at the Cowlitz chimneys, that I will post later.
There are a couple of narrow chutes that are beyond (south) of the large chimney rock that go to Kotsuck drainage. The cornices may not be a big, but they close out to a cliff, so one would have to have a down climb plan for the rock or traverse skiers left earlier and over to the top of Kotsuck. And it is feasible, if the log bridge is still in to go to hwy 123 via Owyhigh summer trail.
I could go on...
What a fun day to be touring,
Joe
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Who postholed my skintrack?
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