I hope these comments will be helpful to some considering the southwest couloir route. Myself and my two sons did not complete this climb but will return for another attempt possibly on the same route of one of the many others.
We came in via Pole Creek, Seneca Lake, Highline, and Shannon Pass trails. Shannon Pass was very snow covered and movement around peak lake required small sections with crampons. We moved up the valley then scrambled 700 ft up to base camp at the 11,400 ponds just below Split Mountain Pass. We ran into another group on the way up and were told to be weary of the afternoon conditions on Split Mountain Pass. This turned out to be a good warning. The pass was snow covered with the exception of some rock outcropings around the sides.
We headed up the pass at 3:45 am the next day and conditions were soft but acceptable for climbing with ax and crampons. It took 2 hours. Moving down the neck and across Mammoth glacier was easy, with no open crevasses or burgschrund (I guess this is one advantage to all the snow). Next we had a long climb/snow traverse to the the base of the couloir. Traversing for about a mile in one direction on relatively steep snow was quite tiring but very doable. We arrived at the base of the sw couloir at around 9 am. It was easy to identify as we had taken the advice in the route description and found good landmarks while on top of Split Mountain Pass.
This is where things went sour for us. Not to our surprise (given how snowy the trip had already been), this July the couloir was a mix of snow, rock and ice (as opposed to 2013). We rested a while and considered the climb. We chose to give it a go and moved into the couloir with crampons on. This was fine until the first chock bolder forced us onto rock with crampons. One of my sons (age 22) climbed the class 4 and then belayed myself and my other son (age 21) up with out a problem. We then went up a loose rock scramble section to the next obstacle, a narrow section full of half inch to 2 inch thick ice that was partly broken, hollow, and suspended a few feet above the rocks, it was NG, no good. The only option was another move out onto class fourish rock along the sides. At this point we had already been in the couloir for about an hour and had not made adequate progress. The mixed conditions were poor but we felt we could work through the problems ahead but at a very large cost in time. Given our concerns about several more hours of climbing ahead and an already long return trip even from this point, on softening snow, we chose to turn around here.
We ended up being very happy with our decision, the 1200 ft down climb on Split Mountain Pass ended was very tricky and slow. The snow was way out of condition for safe down climbing. Once did I attempt to use a plunge step on it which led to the need to self arrest. What took 2 hours to go up took 3 to come down. We arrived in our 11400 ft. camp at about 4:15, just in time to start dinner in a hail storm!
My bottom line to readers is this, this route still looks very doable to me when it is the mostly rock route correctly (as far as we could tell) described by Heaton. It is probably a no go for most during the early transition from snow to rock. We went at the same time Heaton did but as can happen, received a very different route. One suggestion would be to take another day and make a base camp on Mammoth Glacier to shorten your summit day and then make the down climb (if snow covered) on Split Mountain pass an early morning (harder snow) affair.
Good luck, see ya at the top,
Sugrbear
SugrBear - Jul 21, 2014 6:03 pm Date Climbed: Jul 17, 2014
Rotten IceI hope these comments will be helpful to some considering the southwest couloir route. Myself and my two sons did not complete this climb but will return for another attempt possibly on the same route of one of the many others.
We came in via Pole Creek, Seneca Lake, Highline, and Shannon Pass trails. Shannon Pass was very snow covered and movement around peak lake required small sections with crampons. We moved up the valley then scrambled 700 ft up to base camp at the 11,400 ponds just below Split Mountain Pass. We ran into another group on the way up and were told to be weary of the afternoon conditions on Split Mountain Pass. This turned out to be a good warning. The pass was snow covered with the exception of some rock outcropings around the sides.
We headed up the pass at 3:45 am the next day and conditions were soft but acceptable for climbing with ax and crampons. It took 2 hours. Moving down the neck and across Mammoth glacier was easy, with no open crevasses or burgschrund (I guess this is one advantage to all the snow). Next we had a long climb/snow traverse to the the base of the couloir. Traversing for about a mile in one direction on relatively steep snow was quite tiring but very doable. We arrived at the base of the sw couloir at around 9 am. It was easy to identify as we had taken the advice in the route description and found good landmarks while on top of Split Mountain Pass.
This is where things went sour for us. Not to our surprise (given how snowy the trip had already been), this July the couloir was a mix of snow, rock and ice (as opposed to 2013). We rested a while and considered the climb. We chose to give it a go and moved into the couloir with crampons on. This was fine until the first chock bolder forced us onto rock with crampons. One of my sons (age 22) climbed the class 4 and then belayed myself and my other son (age 21) up with out a problem. We then went up a loose rock scramble section to the next obstacle, a narrow section full of half inch to 2 inch thick ice that was partly broken, hollow, and suspended a few feet above the rocks, it was NG, no good. The only option was another move out onto class fourish rock along the sides. At this point we had already been in the couloir for about an hour and had not made adequate progress. The mixed conditions were poor but we felt we could work through the problems ahead but at a very large cost in time. Given our concerns about several more hours of climbing ahead and an already long return trip even from this point, on softening snow, we chose to turn around here.
We ended up being very happy with our decision, the 1200 ft down climb on Split Mountain Pass ended was very tricky and slow. The snow was way out of condition for safe down climbing. Once did I attempt to use a plunge step on it which led to the need to self arrest. What took 2 hours to go up took 3 to come down. We arrived in our 11400 ft. camp at about 4:15, just in time to start dinner in a hail storm!
My bottom line to readers is this, this route still looks very doable to me when it is the mostly rock route correctly (as far as we could tell) described by Heaton. It is probably a no go for most during the early transition from snow to rock. We went at the same time Heaton did but as can happen, received a very different route. One suggestion would be to take another day and make a base camp on Mammoth Glacier to shorten your summit day and then make the down climb (if snow covered) on Split Mountain pass an early morning (harder snow) affair.
Good luck, see ya at the top,
Sugrbear