Cross Couloir - Mt of the Holy Cross
28-29 Jun 2001 - by Steve Blecker
Jim and I decided to try for the Cross couloir on Mt.
of the Holy Cross this past week. From Roach's
guidebook, and a description of a climb almost exactly
one year ago, we were hoping for good snow conditions
this time of year. We left the trailhead around 3pm,
making our way down to East Cross Creek around 4:15pm.
After hiking a good 1/4 mile or so past the 'usual'
turnoff to Lake Patricia (unbeknown to us at the
time), we bushwacked and boulder hopped our way up
toward Lake Patrica, which was our goal for the day.
At some point, we stumbled across a faint trail, but
just as quickly lost it. To make a long story short,
when we finally saw Lake Paticia, we were actually
closer to the Bowl of Tears and decided just to camp
there - finally arriving at around 6:30-7:00. After a
calm, and rather warm night's rest at 12,000', we were
on our way to the summit at around 6:45am. The
entrance to the couloir was easy enough to find, and
after gearing up with crampons, helmet and ice ax, we
began our ascent; the uneasiness of starting out just
above the cliffs quickly fading. The deeply inset
couloir and great snow made for a fantastic climb. We
summitted on a calm morning (always a bonus on the
summit of a 14eer) around 9am. After 1/2 hour on the
top, we began our descent, with the plan being
Dawson's 1.1.3 route, which takes you southwest to the
low point between Holy Cross and Point 13,810' (I
think). While walking along the ridge toward the
saddle, we spied what looked to be somewhat of a
'shortcut' where we could hopefully traverse over
toward the saddle. We dropped off the ridge near a
large headwall of snow, myself making about a 15'
class 4 downclimb on the rock, and Jim opting for a
short but steep downclimb on snow. Once in the gully
below the headwall, we headed down the steep talus and
were beginning the not so short looking traverse
toward the saddle, when we spied a potentially quicker
and far more enjoyable descent route. 1,200' feet or
so and about 10 minutes later saw us at the bottom of
a nice glissade; still not sure if this was the
descent route Dawson was describing, but it tough to
pass up a glissade. We made it back to camp around
11am, packed up and headed out, hoping the hike out
would be less grueling than the approach. Picking up a
few cairns here and there and sticking to the creek
bottom whenever possible, we managed to pick up a
faint trail and followed that out (never really
passing by Lake Patricia). When we reached the main
trail, we were only about 50-100 feet west of East
Cross creek. The 900' ascent back up to the pass was
every bit a grueling as advertised. We made it back to
the trailhead around 2:45pm. All in all a very
enjoyable climb!
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