No real powder to speak of, so it must be steep skiing time. Spring conditions mean good snow pack stability, but often questionable turning conditions. I’ve been obsessing over this massive line that stares down at you every time you drive up LCC. The Monte Cristo Direct route is a 3,200ft chute with a 100′ rappel in the middle. Finally found time Saturday morning to go check it out.
Monte Cristo Headwall as seen from Mount Superior
I went light as possible with a harness 2 ropes ( a 60m and a 70m) and a water bottle.
View from the top of the headwall with Superior across the way
Like most lines MC isn’t anywhere near as steep as it looks once you are on top of it.
Traversing over from the headwall will put you on top of the chute.
Conditions were really firm and made for terrible skiing. I almost booted back up at this point.
Looking back up the choke
The snow seriously sucked. I can think of things I’ve skied that were as bad, but not worse.
A pair of skiers descending above me.
Avalanches and rockfall are a real danger while chute skiing. Other people skiing above you is also a hazard especially with all the people getting out these days. These guys descended while I was setting up the first rap anchor. Huge death cookies were a good indicator that someone was above and I hung out until they traversed out the ‘Gully’ exit.
Rapping off the larger cliff
A small icefall remains in the main cliff
I rapped it in 2 sections. The first was off a small tree on skiers left, near the traverse out to the gully. This put me onto a ledge where I found the stubby tree anchor on skiers right. The tail of one of my ropes became hung up on something above. I looked into climbing back up to try and retrieve it, but it didn’t seem safe. Luckily there was still enough rope (by about 5 feet or so) to continue with the final rap over the 100 foot cliff.
The final exit gully to the road
It felt good to get back on solid ground. The snow was perfect corn all the way out to the highway. Great finish to a rough start. Looks like I get to go back up and do it again soon so I can grab my rope.
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