Flattop Mountain
May 21, 2006 - Dragontail Couloir
On May 3, I checked into the hospital and eight hours later I checked out minus one badly corroded gallbladder. The surgeon's admonition was that I stay out of the mountains for 3 weeks. That was not too bad as I had hurried the surgery date to get as much time between the operation and our mid summer departure for the Cordillera Blanca of Peru. I almost made the 21 day limit but an open day and the promise of perfect snow conditions meant I had to shave 3 days of the recovery curfew.
G and I got an early morning start from Cheyenne and arrived at Bear Lake at 5:30 or so in the morning. We were packed and out of the parking lot by 6 a.m., knowing that we did not have a long approach, perhaps one and one half miles and less than a thousand feet of vertical. We agreed that we would "take it slow" when we left the parking lot but we made good time up the trail to Dream Lake and on to Emerald Lake, the far shore of which is the base of the Dragontail Couloir.
We set our sights on the Dragontail a year or so before as we were looking for good preparation climbs to practice some of the steep snow skills that we would need in Peru later that summer. The Dragontail couloir is inclined at about 45 degrees and promised about 1800 feet of steep climbing, hopefully on sweet Spring neve.
The route to the base of the couloir is a trail hike, albeit snowy, to Dream Lake. From there we had to surmount a short highwall and cut along the right side of the valley to get to Emerald Lake. We traversed along the right edge of the lake, owing to the questionable state of the ice and then climbed to the runout at the base of the couloir. There was an accumulation of warm snow sloughs and some slab remnants but the snow in the couloir had a hard night's freeze so we were good to go.
We had a rope and pickets but decided to do at least the lower half of the couloir without any protection. Roping up is always a personal call and our choice not to do so is indicative of our comfort level that morning. On a less comfortable day, we might have roped up, but we were feeling good that day and the snow promised to give us good crampon purchase as well as a sufficiently soft layer to offer purchase to an ice axe in case of a slider. Up we went.
The snow was as good as it looked but we also knew that once the sun hit the slope, we would have a limited time to reach the top before warm snow sloughs would become an issue. We climbed efficiently and I led the lower half of the couloir or at least until took a breather about 900 feet above our starting point. I was starting to feel a touch of fatigue . . . no $#!+, as I had four round holes in my gut that I now had to start paying for.
G led off from the mid point and we both knew that the snow was starting to soften. it wasn't sloughing or making a drippy snowball in the hand . . . yet . . . but that point was going to arrive sooner than later. We made steady steps up to the pinch point in the upper couloir and chose to go left when we reached the upper most portion of the climb. We topped out by climbing the steepest portion of the exit taking in about 15 feet of about 75 degree snow.
We peered back down the 1800 feet of warming snow, content that we had scored a steep snow climb and that I had managed to pull it off in fairly good form. We traversed across the wide sloping shoulder of Flattop peak and started our decent toward the tree line. The open area of the mountain was, for the most part, blown free of snow, to tree line of course. However, once we hit the trees it the snowshoes went on once again and we more or less bee lined through the trees to intercept the trail back to the Bear Lake parking lot.
We caught lunch at Ed's Cantina and I was comforted with the thought that I could pull off a steep couloir. We'd made good time, beat the sun, and we were getting ready for Peru . . . what more could one ask for?