| Peak: | Sayres Benchmark |
| Route: | Grand Central Couloir |
| Range: | Sawatch |
| Posted By: | Cereal |
| Date of Info: | 6/23/2019 |
| Date Posted: | 6/24/2019 |
| Details |
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Ascended Grand Central and descended Grand Central. Coverage was still very good and continuous on both Grand Central and X-Rated! (More snow than in Photo #8 of the Route Description€¦) Between departure from the La Plata Trail and the base of the couloir, snowshoes were essential for traversing through/across/atop the snow-covered willows. This took a long time.... Today (temps ~20F and very cloudy), the last ~100 feet of the couloir was very hard and required a solid effort to kick steps in with the crampons. The far left of the couloir is certainly passable, after which I removed crampons for (what I didn't realize was) a very short walk up to the summit. I wish I'd left the crampons on, because I had to put them back on in order to downclimb the top 100 feet of the couloir, before transitioning to a safe glissade the rest of the way. The approach/return through La Plata Gulch, despite its willowyness, is very pretty and pleasant, particularly during today's return when the sun finally appeared and treated me to excellent views of the high peaks north of 82. Edit: Added one photo. You may see why I decided to go Grand Central rather than X-Rated.... I wanted a safer quick bailout in case the weather turned from just gross to actually bad. 
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