North Couloir, Pacific Peak
(13,950 ft)
Location: Southern TenMile Range
Aspect: North
Length/Elevation: about 10 miles and 3500ft gain. 6 hours to summit. 8 hours RT
TH: Spruce Creek
Group/Date: Frank Bowman on 4.15.14
Pacific Peak on a whim. Frank and I had originally planned on heading up McCullough Gulch to ski the two couloirs off of Fletcher but we both failed to realize that the road was more than likely not plowed to get us down to the TH. On the drive up from Dillon Frank mentioned that he had a buddy show him a pic of the North face of Pacific just a few days prior and that the N. Couloir was in. This line has been on the list for a while now and after hearing that I couldn't get it out of my head. Neither of us wanted to ascend Fletcher from the South and so we decided to drive up to the road to see if it was plowed and if not to turn around and to just give it a go for Pacific. Little behold the road not plowed and so down to Spruce Creek we went, geared up and on the trail at 8AM.
Made it to the base of the climb about 4 hours in. Time to bootpack! She is a steep and sustained couloir. The bottom of the apron at 35 degrees while once at about "rock-line" in the above pic the couloir steepens for the rest of the climb. On the climb up from about parallel with the lower spire we barely found a slope reading under 50 degrees! What a great line! We found good snow all the way to the top of the notch where we had to climb over about 3-4ft of vertical snow. A quick summit tag and then it was time to ski!
Time to ski!
What a great line! It quickly made its way into one of my top favorites! We couldn't have really asked for better conditions either. Ah, this beautiful world we live in!