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| On Saturday, April 20, 2019, I Left the Bear Lake Trailhead, at 4:23 AM, for Notchtop Mountain
in the Odessa Gorge, in
Rocky Mountain National Park.
My goal was to ascend the right of the two Notchtop Couloirs
(Grade II, AI 2 to 3) located on the north side of Odessa Gorge and just west of Notchtop Mountain. I went up the
left couloir last year and just felt like doing the right this year.
This year’s spring snow attempt was roughly a month earlier than I have normally
done (early to mid-May is what I try for), but the advantage to the earlier start was that the avalanche
information websites, like
Colorado Avalanche Information Center,
were still being updated. I think these sites stop updating as soon as the ski season ends. So, the CAIC had
declared the avalanche danger for this day and area as "Low" above treeline: I was good to go.
This shot looks up the route from where I geared up at 7:01 AM. I started up at about
7:30 AM with crampons on hiking boots, axes, climbing harness, some carabiners, a couple runners, and a helmet.
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At 9:17 AM, I stopped for a short rest and took another shot looking up the couloir. So far, other than an eight-foot section of steeper alpine ice and rock mix, this was a consistent roughly 40-degree crusty snow climb. I had noticed a couple of small branches leading off to the left going up, but I was content to stay with what looked like the main vein of the couloir.
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About 10 minutes from the top of the couloir, I started noticing a problem. I had assumed that this couloir would take me to the gorge rim, like the left couloir had last year; however, the cornices I was now seeing beyond the top of the couloir indicated that I was going to be at least a hundred vertical feet short of the rim - bummer! |
At, 10:32 AM, I was as close to the top of the couloir as I dared to get. That rise in front of me was probably another cornice, and I didn't want to chance having it break off with me on top. I couldn’t see any reasonably safe route up to the gorge rim from where I was, leaving me two crappy options. I could down climb to one of the left branches and try again from there, or just give it up and down-climb the whole route. I decided that I had had enough fun for one day and started heading down. It took me a few minutes to get a good down-climbing rhythm going: this wasn’t a skill I had practiced a lot. Even though it was easier on the cardio system going down, meaning I could go faster with less breaks, the descent still took about an hour and forty-five minutes. The short ice and rock section was a little awkward to reverse too. It would have been a great energy and time saver to have been able to glissade, but the route was too steep to easily control my speed, and I didn't want to risk an uncontrolled tumble down the route with an occasional bounce off the rocks, much like a pinball.
| Just 15 minutes down, turning to be sure I was still positioned in the center of the couloir, I noticed this great view of the north side of Flattop Mountain. I set my axes deep and anchored into them so I could take some shots. As I looked, I thought I saw some movement in Flattop Gully, centered in this picture. |
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I zoomed in with the camera and could easily see two people with skis on their packs working up Flattop Gully. They seemed to be moving at a good pace, so I don’t think the angle of ascent was quite as steep as it looked from my viewpoint. Still, I envied what looked like a higher level of fitness than mine. |
It was about 12:30 PM when I dropped my pack at the bottom of the couloir and had a lunch Cliff Bar before heading out. Unfortunately, as I made it down to Lake Helene and Two Rivers Lake, just outside of the gorge, I had to dump my pack and go back up for my camera which was still sitting on the rock where I ate lunch. This screw-up added forty-five minutes to my hike out. Embarrassingly, this was probably the sixth time, or more, in the last 17 years that I’ve had to back-track for my camera, some adding hours to the hike. I’ll never learn. At 2:17 PM, I took my final picture showing the east side of Notchtop Mountain with the cornices lining the top. These were the cornices I saw from the top of the couloir.
I made it back down to the trailhead at 4:00 PM. My GPS showed a total distance of 8.5 miles; a total time out of 11 hours and 40 minutes; and a total altitude gain of 3,731 feet. This outing didn’t go exactly as planned, with a couple of hiccups for sure, but all’s well that ends well, and it sure was a beautiful day to be in the mountains.
National Park Service - Rocky Mountain National Park - Climbing and Mountaineering
