Mt. Borah- West Face

After seeing some info on the West Face of Mt. Borah being in good condition, I suggested to Nicole on a Saturday afternoon we should go take a stab at it. She agreed, and we loaded the car and headed for Mackay. After finding a "camping spot" at the Mt. Borah trailhead, we made a nice dinner of pasta and mushrooms and went to bed around 9. A 4am alarm comes soon.

We awoke to a full moon, made some coffee and oatmeal, and headed out exactly at 5am.

The first thousand feet up the COR (Chicken Out Ridge) trail passed quickly, and soon we were at our turnoff, the saddle at 8,600'. We trended north, headed for the West Face valley. Time for a typical Lost River off-trail adventure- deadfall, scree-in-trees, and postholing. As we tried our best to stay on the 8,600' contour, it became apparent we needed to drop down to the creek to avoid the worst of the trees. We did, and were quickly rewarded with patchy knee deep snow. About an hour of plugging up this valley got us to the West Face cirque (I'll call it).

Looking up. Now where are we going?

Looking down-valley. Note how supportive the snow is. 

We could now see up to COR, and the snow looked great. Knowing our route curved up and left, we stuck to the left side of the valley, skirting old wet slide debris and keeping off the rocks in the valley bottom.

My recollection of a route photo informed me that to get into the long arcing couloir on the right side of the face we needed to stay right (duh) and go through a tight slot. The right slot had a nice big water ice bubble in it, and figuring we could connect to the upper face through the leftmost couloir, we chose left. 

Going up. And left.

The next two thousand feet of climbing went relatively easily. Head up the couloir, avoid the sun, etc. 

Higher

Luckily for us, at about 11,500' things get interesting. The main couloir ends, and a variety of chutes and towers emerge on the upper face. Knowing the summit was a little to the right, I kept us trending up and right, staying on snow as much as possible. There were, however, some nice rock steps to practice our mixed climbing. 

Steep!

We kept it up and eventually gained the trail as it crosses right below the summit. Now to traverse a few snowfields and try not to posthole...

Are we there yet?

The summit had a nice light breeze. It was 12:45.

We took a long break up top to dry out our socks and call our moms. It was Mother's Day, after all. 

Nicole's new foot warmer

Do we have to go down??

We picked our way down the summit block, across the saddle by Sacagawea, and over to Chicken Out.

Down

The upper West Face. We did not take any of the obvious lines in this photo

By the time we got to COR, it was around 2:30. Late, especially with the warm May sun baking since 7am. Going over the top wasn't an option, there were soft melted cornices in both directions. Going around didn't seem a safe option either, with both aspects steep and the snow too soft to support weight. Shit. Well, we knew the couloir below us led back down to the West Face valley, and that would, eventually, lead back down to the car. We headed down the couloir at around 3pm. 

We downclimbed, sidestepped, and glissaded down to the bottom of the valley. Now, I can write that all in one sentence, but it took the better part of two hours. 

Now to walk out the valley and get back into the trees. Remember how supportive the snow was at 6am? We did. And it sure wasn't anymore. Taking baby steps helps reduce the jarring from a deep posthole when you aren't expecting it, and it has the added bonus (not) of being excruciatingly slow. And that only works when you don't expect every step to be a wade. 

Wading

Two more hours elapse. We're finally down in the valley again, looking for the right chance to turn up  to get back to the saddle and meet up with the trail. There is about half an hour of light left, and we know we need to make it to the trail before dark.

We do. 

The rest of the hike out was painful on the toes, but otherwise uneventful. 

The car was waiting for us, alone, at 9:11pm- 16 hours, 6,000 feet of gain and loss, and 7 miles after we had left it.