Crown Couloir Attempt
 

I tend to keep the the failed attempt trip reports to a minimum, but enlight of dru's classification, I will be calling this one a partial failure of the crater slabs.[:o)]

Ever since I saw a thread on cascadeclimbers about this route I've wanted to check it out. Close to home scrambling on sustained class 3 to 4 rock and slabs right to the top of Crown Mountain.

Pic from cascadeclimbers thread, couloir visible just to the right of red
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176014.jpg



Arrived at the top of Grouse Mountain at about 9:30am, and got to watch one of the workers feed the bears some greener grass from the other side of the fence. One bear was interested in the grass and the other one wanted a piece of us or the sunscreen we had just put on.
His sniffer was going crazy.

https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176000.jpg https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176001.jpg

Pretty uneventful trip passing by Dam and Little Goat to the point where you start dropping down into Crown Pass. There is still snow in places when descending making it very muddy and slick, but light approach shoes and poles are fine with care. Once you hit the bottom of Crown Pass instead of carrying on up the standard trail you head right and drop down into Hanes Valley

Found this cool looking explosive or bottle rocket type object, but then realized it was probaly just a trail marker for the winter and it soon became not so cool anymore.
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176002.jpg https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176003.jpg

You have to drop a fair bit of elevation to get to the low point because of the rock faces on your left.

Low point on the trail where you can finally start traversing up and back towards Crown
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176004.jpg

Boulders getting bigger making life easier now
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176005.jpg

We had a feeling there would probaly be snow in the approach gulley for the slabs just not sure how much. We brought crampons but without them we wouldn't have gotten as high as we did. With the crazy winter on the north shore I doubt if the snow over there melts completly this summer
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176006.jpg https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176007.jpg



The snow on the left is where we wanted to go, because the start of the climbing was just on the other side of it. Can sorta see the slabs starting behind the snow back and left. But it was a vertical wall of snow sloping to the right, where it was undercut from the water with a giant moat between the rock and snow. Just being in approach shoes and crampons with no ice axe I wasn't to keen on trying it, Even if we crossed the snow safely, it was hard to tell if you would even be able to get off it onto the rocks.
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176008.jpg



So we back tracked down from the snow and decided to climb some of the rock on the far right hand side of the photo up, and hope it could somehow get us around to where we wanted to be. The first section was some slab climbing and at the top of this we found an old sling, after this the next section of rock was solid, compact, even got alittle short low 5th pitch to climb. But without knowing if this way would take us where we wanted to go, and not having proper gear to get down if we found ourselves in a jackpot the decision was made to not go any higher and head back the same way we came.
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176009.jpg



The sling was there, and we brought a short rope so decided to put them both to good use
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176010.jpg https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176011.jpg https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176012.jpg

GoogleMap minus the snow
Red was our route and were we got stopped
Green is the Full route
Purple was our attempt at finding a way to get back to green
https://www.clubtread.com/forumPix/176000/176013.jpg


I'll probaly give it another month or 2 before going back, and try the approach from Hanes Valley this time.

Just call it a recon. and it's technically kind of maybe not a failure. You'll get it next time. Who were you with?

There is no failure, only learning. "Partial failure" is nothing more than ego talking.

Those bear shots are very cool.

Very challenging I was thinking about that way but never thought it can be done.

You guys are core. Looks like it will be a nice journey when all that jing snow is gone.

Might as well ski it!

Nice trip, Spectrum. Good you turned back before you got into trouble, great challenge and thanks for reporting. Seems amazing such a large quantity of snow exists this late in the summer.

K

Had my eye on this one for some time too. Almost tried it last September.
Wouldn't mind joining you in the next attempt in a month or two.:)

Well, no. Partial failure is something different. Total failure is when you try something and do not succeed - you set off for the mountain and get lost. Partial failure the way I would describe it has some success admixed - say you climb the mountain but don't set the speed record you tried for.

I cant believe your post counter is still stuck Dru :D
Eventually everyone will end up with that #??

Cool trip Spectrum,dont hear from you too much,you must be doing some other great trips in the background too?

I wonder about th epost counter too. Perhaps Jim had adjust the settings and have Dru's post count read up to date and true, however many #'s it is above 10000

K

Defenitly worth going back, we did it in the middle of October I think. The gulley has great climbing when snow free, the Hanes way is longer though.

I think the sling is probably from parties bailing on the last crux wall of Widowmaker.

I'd love to try this route once the snow clears out. Keep me in mind, although I don't travel fast so if you're fast folks, I'll do it with others another time.

Looks like a fun scramble, I might have to scope out this route.

I looked at this on Saturday (Aug 30) when I came up Hanes Valley, but it was still completely fogged in.

I'm actually interested in investigating access to Crown N1 or Spindle Peak this month (if I can open up some free time). But I've been having a lot of challenges getting beta as the valley always seems to be socked in with cloud during my recon trips.:( Has anyone seen any trip reports elsewhere for these summits?