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Tony and I have been planning on doing Shooting Star for a little while now, so even though the forcasted low for friday night was only 40 we decided to still head up and at least check out the conditions and hopefully get to the summit.
We left early in the morning and reach the trailhead at 4:30am. We were extremely surprised and bumbed to see that my thermometer was showing that it was already 58 degrees. We still decided that we might as well head up and atleast see what the snow conditions were. To our surprise the coulior was nice and solid. For part of it we sank in a couple of inches, but for a good portion we had to kick in a couple times to get good footing.
Climbing the glacier on the approach
Early morning sunrise
We took the the east shoulder off of James down into to basin right in front of the couloir.
The traverse into the basin off the shoulder
The NE face of James. Superstar is the right couloir. Shooting Star you can just barely see on the left branch of Superstar
Starting up the climb
You climb up the base of the climb to about 12,700 feet and take the left branch
James Peak lake
The climb averages 47 degrees with some parts being a bit steeper
Nearing the top
Topping out on the couloir
Summit
The descent was uneventful. We took a varitation of the standard route back to the glacier.
One last look at James and the NE face
And watch out for those crevasses. They can be tricky to negotiate
The glacier from the bridge
Thumbnails for uploaded photos (click to open slideshow):
No I didn‘t fall in. Just thought it would be fun to get some pics that looked like I did. That was one good climb though.
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