Home > Trip Reports > May, 19, Notch Couloir, Longs Peak

May, 19, Notch Couloir, Longs Peak

5/15/07
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Posted by danhelmstadter on 5/20/07 3:08am
The notch couloir is a fairly extreme route, most of it is ~55 and a  fall would launch one over the ~1000 ft cliff to certain death, as the couloir ends above the lower east face, there were three short raps in the couloir itself, two probally could have been downclimbed.. once at the bottom of the couloir, a 800ft traverse is needed across broadway which is a little ledge above the lower east face, the ledge is relitively easy in the summer, yesterday it was very snow covered, with rotten snow. the snow on the ledge was about ~50dg with nothing below but air. after several rocky cruxes on broadway, it exits into the lambslide a ~45dg wide couloir.
I set out on friday at about 5 and set up my tent on mills glacier around 9, got started at ~5 saturday, the hike/"climb" up lambslide went smothly, the snow was not quite corn stage yet, still a little deep and wet. once at the top i hiked over then down clarks arrow(a rocky gully) to kiplingers couloir (low angle couloir) on the south face of longs, kiplingers is the couloir opposite of the notch,, the notch faces northeastish, while kiplingers is southwestish, once i gained the top of the notch 13900, the exposure looking down the couloir took the romantacisim out of the moment. the skiing was great,, a little wet and deep, definatly not corn, i rapped three times, leaving behind a sling and two kife blade pitons, the lower couloir was the most enjoyable skiing, the snow was a little weird though, wet underneath with a shallow coat of powder, makeing for sticky suctiony turns,,, once at the bottom i made my first anker, and got the first taste of the insane exposure below, i thought i would have nerves of steel, but i was pretty shakey for a while. to top it off, a knarly thunderstorm rolled in, makeing for a terrifying experience. the first few pitches were a little akward as i fine tuned my solo self belay syestem,, i used cams and nuts to protect, with my 37m ice floss, I attached one end to an anker, then traversed protecting here and there, then fixed the other end to an anker,, then went back to the other end of the rope to clean my first ankers, then went back to the other end and started over,,, which meant that i covered the same ground three times,,, makeing for exruciatingly slow going, with the ever looming void a few inches behind me. I tried to ignore the exposure and focus on what needed to be done. there were about 4 or five pitches of this traversing, then i unroped when the traverse was fat snow, instead of snow/rock,, the crux was a protrudeing rock which one has to lean way out over the depths below, with arm extended on handhold, then reach way out and grab another hold,, which was a balancing act with skiis,  my third time i almost lost balance.. finally i reached the lambslide and ripped it, back to my camp then back to the truck at 10pm last night.
expletive deleted! 

Nice work man... Appears you dont mess around.

here are some more pics,,

Looks a tad exposed....

Having climbed that route you are officially classified as certifiable.  Congratulations on pulling that off.  I would never have even thought about trying to get down that.  Impressive pictures.
John

The Sept 1984 issue of Rock & Ice magazine has a good article about the first ski descent of the Notch Couloir by John Harlin III and Jimmy Katz.

I cant belive that guy skiied across most of broadway!! although he was roped,, they skiied the entire couloir on belay, I wonder who skiied it first without a rope?

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may-19-notch-couloir-longs-peak
danhelmstadter
2007-05-20 10:08:00