Joe and I made an ambitious one day attempt on the Cosley-Houston route on Colfax this weekend. Colfax is one of the subsidiary peaks one passes while heading up the Coleman glacier on Baker. The road to the Heliotrope Ridge TH was snowpacked but drivable, so we headed up Friday night and bivied at the TH.
Saturday morning we arose at 4:30 and were off by 5:20 in the frigid air. Not only was the trail icy, the winds of recent storms contributed to a large number of downed trees. Due to the blowdown, we missed the turnoff (again) to the ridge in the dark following the bootpack and went almost to Mirkwood. But we headed up the side of the last creek and attained the glacier by sunrise.
The conditions were perfect. Single digit temps with several inches of powder snow on a hard base. We did notice the streamers off the peaks, but the air was still around us, so we continued up. Colfax is the peak to the right of Baker.
At about 7200', we dumped the excess gear, roped up and headed for the route. Not far above this, the winds picked up and noticed spindrift avalanches coming off the peak. Heading up to the base we crosses what looked like rime ice crusts on the snow.
By the time we reached the base of the route, it was 11 am. The route looked pretty interesting with the rock encrusted with rime ice. It heads up the rock to the waterfall on the right.
But we decided to call it due to the limited daylight and the blowing conditions. We were also worried about wind transported snow on the lee side, which was our decent route. Oh well. Back below 7500, the air was still and we thawed out in a brief bit of sunshine. Perfect conditions for skiing, if we had brought skis. A good day in the mountains, anyway.
It's your lead. Chop, chop.