Dana Couloir

13 Sep 2003 - by Mike Scarpulla

Consolidated snow below 'schrund, full water ice from 'schrund to top. Serious rock fall hazard, especially when sun hits upper section of climb (saw some big ones near the top just waiting to melt out and fall). Rocks seemed to stay mostly on left side of couloir, so we pretty much hugged the right buttress but one of us got nailed in the helmet (thank diety of choice) anyhow. 6 60m pitches from just below 'schrund to the saddle at the top. Even though it was tempting, we followed the conventional wisdom and went over the summit to the hiking trail rather than trying to traverse around from the saddle. A great straightforward intro to alpine ice. PS - Solstice couloir looked like it had consolidated snow / ice all the way up, but we didn't get too close on the approach.


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