Tuesday April 2nd, 2019 White Pyramid, 3219 metres
Synopsis: In the right conditions 4 out of 5 stars. It's a beautiful cirque that would be difficult to access in the summer followed by a great non technical ridge climb.
We attempted it earlier in the year last winter and ran out of day/lacked crampons for the ridge. This year we came prepared and lucked out with great conditions and didn't need the crampons.
We attempted it earlier in the year last winter and ran out of day/lacked crampons for the ridge. This year we came prepared and lucked out with great conditions and didn't need the crampons.
I parked on a pullout on the west side of the highway just over 24 km north of Num Ti Jah Lodge after seeing tracks heading further north. We left the car at 8 am with Chephren and White Pyramid bathed in early morning light. We essentially followed tracks from several parties, including snow shoers from earlier in the day a couple of hundred metres north and then through the bush arriving at Epaullette Lake 45 minutes later after gaining 150 metres of elevation.
It was a spectacular morning, with forecasted blue sky and -7 C at the car. The tracks allowed for very little descending to the lake which made the return trip far easier. It took another 40 minutes of following the drainage further up until breaking out of the forest for good. The route is obvious up to the low point on the ridge, as is the summit on the upper left hand.
We finally caught up to the sun at 9:40 which made a large difference to the comfort level and softened up the hard pack. Ski crampons weren't needed but it was close, I got lucky as I left mine at home. The advantage of not much snow recently was a well beaten track which made for easy travel and, admittedly, a little less of a sense of adventure.
The ski up to the col isn't as steep as it looks, although as you can see from the photo's I had trouble keeping up with Sara Mae. We arrived at the base of the climb to the col at 11:30 am and my watch showed 2695 metres, a gain of just short of 1100 metres.
In the photo above the route goes up and to the left of the blocky feature the end of the bowl, after carrying skis further last year we elected to leave them at the base of the boot packing. However one individual from another party carried his to the summit and skied a considerable distance down the ridge.
The climb up to the col was much, much easier than the previous year when we essentially swam up faceted shite. A beat in trail made life pretty easy.
Breaking out on the ridge in the sun and not much for wind was stunning with great views in every direction. The first little bump in the ridge came quickly. Note that it isn't the large false summit unless you are doing a fair amount of down climbing (miscalled by me, ops!).
Above is the true false summit (I know, I know). As mentioned we brought crampons however never felt the need to put them on. There were two groups of two snow shoers ahead of us that were kind enough to put in the boot track and did use them.
The false summit was had at 1:20 pm at an elevation of roughly 3100 metres. Note that the steepest climbing of the ascent was the down climbing (roughly 30 metres) after the false summit and the up just on the other side. Unfortunately the up was right around the rocks and was pretty faceted, otherwise the footing was pretty solid.
The final slopes to the went quickly and we were on top at 2 pm, a 6 hour push. For perspective the snow shoers ahead of us beat their way up in 8 hours, leaving at 4 am! If I see them again I'll buy them a beer.
Awesome views of Chephren, the Lyells, Cline, the Goodsirs and much, much more.
Blue sky and no wind! We had a good break and second lunch on the summit. The forecast was for -10 C on the summit and it felt pretty close. After a half hour we retraced our steps without much drama.
On the way up we went through a couple of patches of pretty frozen rubble that I thought might be tricky on the way down, however Sara Mae found an easy way around and we were back at the skis at 3:30 pm.
The ski down was fast and better than expected, especially higher up. 4:30 saw us on the east side of Epaulette Lake. Thanks to the previous tracks we gained what little elevation we had to without skins. The ski out was a bit tricky, the usual combination of ice in the shade and crust with the start of isothermic snow elsewhere however definitely not diabolical.
We were back at the car at 5:10 for just over a 9:00 hour, 1696 metre, 19.8 km day although Gaia shows that 2:15 hrs of that was sitting on our packs, not surprising.
It was a spectacular morning, with forecasted blue sky and -7 C at the car. The tracks allowed for very little descending to the lake which made the return trip far easier. It took another 40 minutes of following the drainage further up until breaking out of the forest for good. The route is obvious up to the low point on the ridge, as is the summit on the upper left hand.
We finally caught up to the sun at 9:40 which made a large difference to the comfort level and softened up the hard pack. Ski crampons weren't needed but it was close, I got lucky as I left mine at home. The advantage of not much snow recently was a well beaten track which made for easy travel and, admittedly, a little less of a sense of adventure.
The ski up to the col isn't as steep as it looks, although as you can see from the photo's I had trouble keeping up with Sara Mae. We arrived at the base of the climb to the col at 11:30 am and my watch showed 2695 metres, a gain of just short of 1100 metres.
In the photo above the route goes up and to the left of the blocky feature the end of the bowl, after carrying skis further last year we elected to leave them at the base of the boot packing. However one individual from another party carried his to the summit and skied a considerable distance down the ridge.
The climb up to the col was much, much easier than the previous year when we essentially swam up faceted shite. A beat in trail made life pretty easy.
Breaking out on the ridge in the sun and not much for wind was stunning with great views in every direction. The first little bump in the ridge came quickly. Note that it isn't the large false summit unless you are doing a fair amount of down climbing (miscalled by me, ops!).
Above is the true false summit (I know, I know). As mentioned we brought crampons however never felt the need to put them on. There were two groups of two snow shoers ahead of us that were kind enough to put in the boot track and did use them.
The final slopes to the went quickly and we were on top at 2 pm, a 6 hour push. For perspective the snow shoers ahead of us beat their way up in 8 hours, leaving at 4 am! If I see them again I'll buy them a beer.
Awesome views of Chephren, the Lyells, Cline, the Goodsirs and much, much more.
Blue sky and no wind! We had a good break and second lunch on the summit. The forecast was for -10 C on the summit and it felt pretty close. After a half hour we retraced our steps without much drama.
On the way up we went through a couple of patches of pretty frozen rubble that I thought might be tricky on the way down, however Sara Mae found an easy way around and we were back at the skis at 3:30 pm.
The ski down was fast and better than expected, especially higher up. 4:30 saw us on the east side of Epaulette Lake. Thanks to the previous tracks we gained what little elevation we had to without skins. The ski out was a bit tricky, the usual combination of ice in the shade and crust with the start of isothermic snow elsewhere however definitely not diabolical.
We were back at the car at 5:10 for just over a 9:00 hour, 1696 metre, 19.8 km day although Gaia shows that 2:15 hrs of that was sitting on our packs, not surprising.