High 4, El Capitan and the Como peaks

Prologue Sometime in the middle of the winter, Ned mentioned the concept of skiing the High five in a day, ending with the East face of El Capitan.  It seemed way too long and technical, and I didn't really take him seriously.  As we were scheming later in the winter, I threw it out among a list of more manageable tours.

An excerpt from our correspondence:

Other ideas, less optimized for Sunday since they are either in familiar terrain, or could wait until later in the spring;  High four:  Ned and Frank's scheme.  Definitely skipping Lonesome Bachelor.  And ski the SE couloir on El Capitan, not the E. face.  I am not up for the E. face.

Much to my surprise, he latched on to the idea, and over the course of about 24 hours we planned out a route that seemed feasible in a day.

Ned with extra smiles on the summit of Middle Como, with
our excellent run on West Como behind.

The day Spoiler - this was a really, really, really good day.

With Justin Angle along, we launched from the trailhead at 5 am after a night of almost no sleep.  The trail approach is actually not that bad.  Something in my digestive track was not firing quite right, and I had to do more stops in the bushes than I care to remember, but it was otherwise a fine morning.  I did not take the optimal route climbing to the mid-slope bench in the dark, but got the job done.  We were soon on the bench, the sun was rising, and it was lining up to be a great day.

At this point, Ned kicked into gear and pulled us along the 3-hour bench traverse and up the rolling flanks of El Capitan.  It was clear that this was not my day physically, and I got pretty dang knackered trying to keep up.  We summited El Capitan on schedule with great conditions, in good spirits.  For style purists, we did not climb the final 20-foot craggy summit block.

Climbing El Capitan.

We took a fine rolling run down the Southwest ridge and face of El Capitan.  It is a big enough mountain that you have to just stop skiing, and we ended our run with a big traverse to put us in the most efficient position to climb back over the Lonesome Bachelor shoulder.  I was grateful for a decent break to eat some food and re-set for the 5,000 vertical feet of climbing still to go.

Justin skiing the Southwest face of El Capitan,

During the climb to West Como, it became clear to me that we were in for a special day.  I was already tired as a dog, but conditions were perfect, and I was really excited about how well the tour was starting to flow.  The climb up West Como was smooth, with me taking a decent early pull, then Justin and Ned taking the blue collar booting pull to the summit.  From the top, we decided to have a look at the steep Southeast face.  It was perfect. Safe, but with just enough snow to be really fun.  We were soon all down in the tarn on our way to Middle Como.

Looking out to our ascent route up the obvious snow face to West Como.

Justin and Ned nearing the summit of West Como.

"This definitely goes, I think".  Dropping into the intimidating
Southeast face of West Como.  Photo: Ned Gall

That was great! West Como in the bag and zipping along to Middle Como.

The climb up Middle Como takes a nice sneak gully to the upper Southeast face. Ned took the reigns and put the entire track in.  The Southeast face of Middle Como is nice and mellow.  It was mid afternoon, but the snow was still excellent, and we had a great time cruising.  At the base of the run, Justin was not feeling very good, so we made a plan to split up for East Como and regroup for the exit.  I appreciated the really great communication on Justin's part.  I was actually feeling decent, and got a jump on setting the track to East Como. Ned soon caught up, and we traded trailbreaking pulls to the summit.  To our pleasant surprise, Justin rallied and ended up catching up with us, so we all topped out together.  Justin and I transitioned at the base of the final 20 foot summit block, and Ned climbed the final craggy pitch to the exact summit.

Starting up again  The route to middle Como goes up a hidden couloir in front of Justin.

Justin enjoying the good, mellow skiing on Middle Como.

Last pull to East Como.

We had another great run.  This one was the long one - 4000 feet down to Tin Cup creek.  The skiing on the peak was great fun, as was the moderate terrain on the bench.  Getting from the bench to Tin Cup creek is surprisingly tricky, and I led everyone down into the wrong gully.  Fortunately we realized our error high enough to be able to traverse to the correct exit gully with only minimal difficulties.  We finally encountered some challenging snow as we neared Tin Cup creek, but it could have been a lot worse, and we were soon on the trail. 

Starting down East Como.  Photo: Ned Gall.

Ned letting them run somewhere below East Como.

The ski out was long, but it was fairly straightforward.  Ned fell into the creek on the return crossing, but I was able to give him a hand getting out of the creek, and he took it in stride.  We had a difference of opinion on how much fun the last few miles to the trailhead were, but I thought they were just fine by Bitterroot standards, and we made it out right at dark.

We ended up making a dumb driving blunder and got the truck stuck at the trailhead, and ended up having to call a tow truck.  That was not fun at all.  But we made it out, and I am grateful both for Justin and Ned's good decision making and patience, and for the good folks at Wimp's towing who rallied out to get us.

Approximation of our route..

Epilogue

Such a great route.  Ned pulled us along all day with his trailbreaking and motivation.  Damn, Ned, a big high four for a day well executed.  A stand alone Como link up tour is a more normal length classic that I still need to do.

Route: See google earth images.

Approximate total elevation gain:  11,000 vertical feet
Duration: 15.5 hours 
Accomplices: Ned Gall, Justin Angle
Put in/Take out:  Main Tin Cup creek trailhead

Fuel: Egg Avacado sandwich, nuts, Tailwind and a passel of bars.  Averaged about 150 cal/hr.
Equipment:   Voile Ultra Vector skis with Plum Oazo bindings (didn't use lightest set up because skins weren't working reliably).  Normal boots.  One whippet, Alu crampons, in pack, basic emergency kit.

Equipment left in car to save weight: ski crampons, helmet, ice axe.   
Tricks of the day: Route familiarity, Ned's motivation.

Number of ski runs: 4

Number of excellent ski runs: 4

Fatigue factor (1-10): 9.5 (I was feeling it)
Stoke factor (1-10): 9.9
Memories to suppress: Getting stuck.  Not feeling awesome.  Little sleep the night before.