Sigmoid Chute, Squaretop Mountain 4/1/06

[El Kabong]

Well, I dont really know what this thing is called but I am about to take a test on gastrointestinal pathophysiology so I decided to name it after my favorite part of the colon.

Anyway, went up saturday morning to try and find something big to ski. I had seen something about a bunch of couloirs coming down the north face of squaretop in front range descents and decided to go check it out with my gf heather and buddy ben (who is a maggot but i dont know his screenname). Squaretop rises to 13800 or so feet and is pretty easily accessed from the top of guanella pass.

The weather was supposed to be mostly cloudy with some snow but overall it was warm with not too much wind so the climb up wasnt too bad.

Skinning across squaretop lake with the east face above. Some of those chutes look fun but are not really that steep and probably a little short to worth hiking up there for.



We got up to the summit after about 2 1/2 hours and began poking around for a line to ski. Farther west on the summit ridge there looked to be two mellower snowfields dropping down but we decided to try a line that originated a little closer to the summit.

We had to downclimb an annoying scree field to get to the top of it:



The upper pitch of the line was a fairly open snowfield that we were hoping had held some of the snow that had fallen earlir in the week. Unfortunately we were wrong. It was about two inches of snow over a million little wind ridges that ran perpendicular to the slope. Needless to say it ended up being survival skiing at best. About halfway down Heather hit one of the lips and ended up going for a little ride down the slope. It was scary to watch and definitely scared the shit out of her. But once she got her skis back on she bore down and we got into the tight part.

Ben dropping into the chute proper:



There was about three inches of snow over the harder surface underneath, so slough management was definitely an issue. Ben skied it hard and pulled out at a good place to let a pretty big one go to the apron. We skied down to what seemed to be the choke only to find that it was about fifty feet of rock and snow. At this point we were a little worried that the line might not go and we would have to climb out, but with a little downclimbing we found a nice 50 deg/5 foot wide slot that let us onto the apron.

Heather, trying not to pee her pants putting on her skis on some sketchy rocks:



Getting through the sphincter of the line:



And making some mass movement out to the apron:



our line from the bottom. The upper pitch was about 800 vert but is obscured by clouds. We skied essentially to the choke of the V in the middle of the photo and then climbed looker's right to the slot out. THere are some cool lines on the looker's left but it looks like they would all involve a rappel at some point in them.



Overall, it was interesting day. Not great snow or weather, but we ended up skiing a cool line. It was an easy traverse back to the pass road and managed to hitch a ride within 5 minutes of getting to the road.

[Kya]

Nice TR. Got to love the "Guenella Pass Wind Blows Everything Away Factor"

[KillingCokes]

Looks like you had fun up there.
Squaretop east bowl rocks. So esthetic. Skied it a few years back. Such a great place with super easy access