Last Saturday the weather was too good to stay indoors, so Lee G. and I were super stoked to go explore something new. I heard from Dean last year about Thar peak. A quick search on here revealed two trip reports from Leigh and Cormac on this face that provided sufficient info to check it out.

We arrived at TH at 745ish, and were on our way by 8am. Once we arrived at the lake we got a first good look at the face. What a gem it is! There's so much potential. We couldn't believe how easy it was to access this face that has to offer so much.

We opted to follow the other's foot steps and went for the main couloir on the climber's far right. The snow in the couloir was good. A 10-15cm firm wind crust with semi- consolidated snow underneath was providing good support and we made good time to the second fork, about 3/4 of the way up. Here we decided to explore the exit on the hard left which lead into a 45% couloir with a few rock steps.

The snow in this exit couloir was horrible. It was a mix of sugar powder and thin wind crust. The rock was of similar nature, chossy falling all over the place. I had to take off my pack and let Lee pull it up while I got busy clearing the small overhanging step. Victory at last we thought! A few more steps later I got up on the small corniced ridge to realize we were about 5m under the summit in a bit of a trap. Uh oh shit and giggles, let's descend back to the main couloir ... this was easier said than done. We discussed the option of rapping, and after some risk analysis we decided to bite the bullet and descend under our own steam. Needless to say, a fall at this stop would not be a good idea... one would probably not die, but there would be some serious injuries.

After climbing back down to the fork, we decided we had enough adventure for one day and finished the climb via the main couloir. The views on the summit were exhilarating! All in all, it was a great day to be out climbing something new with a good buddy.

Equipment: We carried pickets, a few screws, and a rope, but didn't feel it was necessary to get them out. In hindsight, it would've been great to have a few nuts to aid the tricky rock spots.

Pics:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/photos/1...COj1xozdg5SZGQ

A few sample pics:

There is a rock step I think either right before or just after the climbers left exit gully. How did you find it? Was it snowed in?

This is a picture of Dean leading it:

Same thing looking down from the top
It's just below the forks iirc

Here are some pics Lee took of the same spot I believe.



It was all snowed in and straight forward...

Nice climb Adrian!! Hope we get to climb/ski soon together!

Here is an interesting perspective on the NF couloir of Thar - from Guanaco in summer. Both finishes are shown.

I am getting dizzy just looking at these pictures.

..like a fly on the wall.

K

If I wanted to ski this, how tall is the crux I'd have to rap down?

Some guys did it earlier this year. Looks like they used a 60m rope. It avalanched either later that day, or early the next day. If you read the comments the guy is pretty cavalier, though also had good reasons for skiing it when he did. Threading the needle for sure though.