Missions, Cold Couloir

The Cold couloir in all its glory during our exit.

Jeffrey and I set out at a reasonable hour for a day of pleasant exploration in the Missions.  Admittedly, the words "pleasant" and "exploration" are rarely combined when describing trips into the Missions, but we prevailed with some Google earth research and a little luck.  The drive to the Terrace lake trailhead was scarier than I had hoped for.  The road is very narrow and rocky, and meeting an oncoming vehicle would be extremely unplesant.  Fortunately we didn't see anyone and were soon hiking up a new to us trail.  The trail up to snowline had a lot of downfall, but is well constructed and enjoyable.  From just above snowline we made the obligatory long traverse into Crow creek and popped up to Terrace lake.  Another short push put us at a col overlooking Cold peak and it's striking West couloir.  The day was heating up rapidly, so we made a beeline for the peak.  The couloir was terribly runneled, but we decided to have a look anyway.

Looking up to the approach col from Terrace lake.

Behold, a three step kick turn.  Avoiding punchy new snow wallowing at all costs.

Jeffrey climbing to the col on the approach.

With 8" of fresh and rapidly warming snow, I made a hard push up the couloir to minimize exposure time.  This also meant we did not have time to go to the exact summit.  The ski line is striking, but the snow quality was awful.  We took our time to ski it safely, and were soon at the base of the run, admiring our tracks and eating lunch.

Up.

And down.

But not down in the runnel!

In deference to the rapidly warming conditions and to preserve the pleasant mantra for the day, we shelved plans to add on another run and started reversing our approach route.  The ski run back down from the col to Terrace lake was great fun, as was the schuss down Crow creek.  The traverse to get back to the trailhead ridge was kind of hot and long, but it didn't matter.  Below snowline, I was content to walk it out, but Jeffrey wanted to run, so we pounded out to the car.  After many long ski days, it was nice to return to the car by mid afternoon not too tired.  I think the day was between 7 and 8k of vertical, and we were out for 8 hours.

Jeffrey exiting.

What a striking line and fun bouncing tour getting in.  While it must be possible to approach the couloir directly from Swartz, I think this high route from Terrace lake was better.  Although a surprising number of potential ski lines have weird cliffs and pinches, rendering them unsuitable, there is still a fair bit more skiing to do in the area.