Many of you know Reed. He's skied about seven times this year since spending five months of the winter in Buenos Aires working on a documentary film about life in one of the city's massive "villas" (slums, favellas).
Sam just moved here from Vermont. He was in India skiing for two and a half months last winter, so though we hadn't skied together I assumed he would be proficient enough to handle some fall-you-die volcanic rime ice side slipping.
I was wearing shorts and a stylish straw hat.
Having talked to Jason Hummel about his descent of the Coleman Headwall last Friday, we had designs of skiing a similar line. So after climbing the Coleman Deming route, we headed towards to ultimate in blind rollovers at the top of the headwall. As the slope drops away, all you can see is the toe of the Coleman glacier 7,000' below your tips. My legs quivered. Lines like this provoke physical bodily reactions.
We had intentions to investigate the direct entrance to the headwall, but the extremely icy and rimy snow surface convinced us to take the less direct entrance to the skier's left. As the slope steepened the snow surface got harder, quite to our dismay. The heart of the headwall looked like it was softening, but it would have likely required donning 'pons and axes to downclimb the crux rollover to reach the softer slopes, a commitment we weren't willing to make. Our assessment: freezing levels were reported to be around 12k' which should be high enough to put this route in good skiable condition. However, brisk winds kept the rimed entrance slopes from transitioning from their icy state. We would have to wait for another day.
So from our perch we opted for what Reed termed "the sickest fail line ever." I had to agree. We dropped to the left of the ridge atop the Coleman Headwall to the W-facing snow slopes beneath the Roman Nose. A quick hop across a massive crevasse deposited us atop a ramp of absolutely immaculate corn snow on the edge of an icefall that we had watched actively calving and avalanching during our morning ascent. It The only way it would have been more exciting is if a serac would have calved off to our right as we were skiing providing a rapturous soundtrack for perfect steep skiing.
Finally back on the mellow slopes of the Coleman, we enjoyed mushy turns for another few thousand feet, before jogging back to the car down the trail.
We found Dan Helmsteder parked near the trailhead with designs of trying to Coleman Headwall the next morning. We chatted him up, the guy actually has a cell phone now if you want to track him down.
Sam at the party.
Decompress!
