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I wanted to get one more good snow climb before the season ends. I had my eyes on the Snave on Mt. Evans because it's supposed to be a moderate snow route and a short drive and approach.
Knowing that the Snave is north facing, I know I don't have to start as early as some of the other couloirs, I left Boulder at 5:30 and got to the Summit Lake parking lot just after 7am. Pretty much the entire north face was in the shadow, and would remain so until noon.
I arrived at the cirque below Mt. Evans's north face shortly. I essentially picked the route with the best looking snow. However, the difficulty of some of the rocky sections were hard to judge from so far away, as I would realize soon. Here is the route I picked out:
Sunrise couloir also look great except for the long cornice near the top:
There were some patches of ice here and there along the route:
After a while I reached the chute below the traverse to Snave Direct, for me exiting the chute was the crux of the route. There were large boulders with ice, all in all very steep.
I was slightly concerned at the crux because I didn't have any protection and wearing crampons while trying to get on these rocks was just treacherous. However, I was able get through it without incident. In comparison, the actual Snave Direct, actually felt easier than the exit of the snow chute. Here is a picture of part of the crux:
Snave Direct still has some snow on the lower part, but the upper portions were pretty much melted out. I had to stow away my axes and my crampons to do the final section, which was essentially an easy rock climb, made slightly more challenging with mountaineering boots instead of rock shoes.
At the base of Snave Direct. Approaching, the upper, rocky section.
The sun was hitting this part of the climb but the snow was still in very good condition surprisingly.
When I got to the summit, I had the unusual pleasure of having the summit all to myself. And I ran into this little guy, he literally was about 3 feet away from me:
Summit shot:
All in all an incredible climbing experience. The route I picked ended up more difficult than I expected. The snow condition is also excellent for the most part, there should be at least another week or two of good climbing on Mt. Evans.
Hope you enjoy my report!
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
Sunday morning I climbed up that same left-hand gully shown in your pics 6 & 7.
I was climbing with a guy on his very first snow climb and was wary about getting him in over his head, so after a quick inspection of that icy notch and realizing how tricky it would be, I backed off and downclimbed out of that side gully. We traversed back over into Crystal Couloir proper and just followed it out.
Funny to see an unrelated picture of that notch just a day and a half later.
I was surprised how dry the north face is this year compared to last, given this year's crazy snow season. Last year I was able to climb straight up Crystal from the basin on snow all the way - this year we had to snake some lateral traverses together to avoid what I suspected would be a WI or rock step at the bottom.
Oh that's funny. Yeah that gully was pretty dicey near the end. It would have been better without crampons because it was so rocky. It took me quite some time to get over the crux.
there were no kettle balls or other garbage left up there.
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