By Sunday late afternoon after instructing at Ice 1 field trip I and three students Barbara, Pete and Steve stood below the Coleman Headwall where Ed Cooper and his party might have stood 51 years ago in August 1957 before their first ascent of the headwall and probably just like him we were contemplating which way to climb up the next day. The base of the headwall is split by rock cliffs in the middle and your options come down to left or right. The factors that play role here are potential ice fall, rock fall and ease of negotiating crevasse. I’m not sure what made Ed choose the left side but the left side was a clear winner for us too. Another reason we decided to climb up to the base was to eliminate one of the three cruxes of this climb and that is finding a way though the crevasse fields of Coleman and Roosevelt Glaciers. Feeling content with what we saw we retreated back to our camp 2000ft below.
The black line on the next picture shows the line we chose from below and successfully climbed the next day.
Crevasses fields on the lower Coleman Glacier
On Monday we left camp at 3am and followed our tracks from the day before to the base of the headwall. Here as the daylight grew we split into two rope teams of two and started heading up on the left side of the left side. The base was hard snow about 40 degrees
Negotiating smaller crevasses at the base
As soon as we negotiated two big crevasses by climbing around on the left side we started heading in rising traverse towards the rock cliffs where the ice fall hazard was smaller. At this point we were simul climbing placing pickets for protection here and there as needed
Barbara heading right
Here the slope got steeper to about 50 degrees but footing felt secure on mostly frozen snow.
Pete and Steve leading up towards the left side of the cliffs
It was possible to take a break and let the feet rest on flatter ground at a few smaller crevasses running across the face
Pretty soon we have reached the top of the cliffs. Here’s Pete enjoying flat ground while Barbara belaying Pete up.
From here we started heading into the unknown. All we knew from our reconnaissance was there was a berschrund running all the way across the face but we could not see if this would posses any significant difficulties. We started traversing sharp to the right below ice cliffs using pickets an screws as running protection.
Once I turned the corner around the ice cliffs I was pleased to find out the anticipated second crux was not a crux at all. What we found above the schrund were giant grooves. Which we followed all the way to the third crux.
Here’s Steve climbing in the groove.
and here’s everybody in the groove
The third crux is a diagonal crevasse right below the exit slope of the headwall. The upper side is formed by vertical hard ice wall. We aimed roughly to the middle of the smooth exit slope where we could see a weakness which minimized the size of vertical climbing to a few feet with an option to completely avoid it with some ice acrobatics. The ice was good and protection great so I chose the 5-6 vertical feet for myself and entered the last stage of the climb. The exit slope was hard ice with covered with a thin layer of softer ice. I’ve not encountered this kind of layered ice before but all we had to do to place a bomber screw was to break the upper layer with a hammer. The slope started around 60 degrees right above the crevasse easing to some 50 degrees after the first pitch.
Barbara-Pete rope climbing the beginning of the final stretch of the headwall. The two dots below are two climbers who followed our tracks.
The pain in the feet grew with every step and it was helpful to chop a nice belay platform to stand on. It took about 4 full rope lengths to get to place where the ice turned to hard snow again and the slope eased enough to switch to simul-climbing.
Barbara at the top of the exit slope.
It was great relief for the feet to switch to simple walking and for the mind to be out of danger zone. The next two pictures sums it all.
On the summit we ran into a group of college girls who graciously took our summit shot. Here sorted by size are Pete, Barbara, Steve and me.
Great job guys!