Emily and I were both suffering from upper respiratory infections last weekend, but the weather was beautiful and we were also suffering from cabin fever after mostly taking January off from climbing, and so we headed off to CLIMB A THING. Namely, Lane Peak. Namely, the Zipper, which is a steep little couloir up the north face of the mountain, right about here:
Emily and I have been wanting to get out on some steep snow, since my few experiences on steep snow early last summer made me pretty nervous. But I have done much scarier things in the last six months! Steep snow ain’t nothin’, it turns out.
Emphasis on the snow — if either of us had taken a fall on this route, we’d probably slide a little ways before just getting too stuck to move. Which maybe had something to do with why it didn’t feel scary. We started out with a rope and pickets to protect the route (as the two parties in front of us did), and then realized it was ridiculous in these conditions and we kicked it up solo-style.
The Zipper gets up to about 45 degrees at best, and we were disappointed it wasn’t scarier. So when we came out of the couloir to finish the climb to the summit, we were pleased to see that things were about to get REAL SCARY. Emily made this helpful visual aid to demonstrate how steep the slope was to start off. It got quite a bit steeper after that, but we weren’t about to let a hand off an ice axe to take pictures at that point.
From the top of Lane Peak, I could see four other mountains I’ve successfully climbed, including the big guy in the background.
The summit ridge was mildly terrifying. We climbed up part of it, then worried about whether we could safely get back down. It wasn’t exactly dangerous, but the exposure was certainly stressful. We hung out for ten minutes or so on the ridge discussing what to do (about thirty horizontal feet from the true summit), and then concluded that we’d gotten the steep snow experience we wanted and we were ready to put on some snowshoes and wallow on homeward.
And then we did! Success!
Emily and I have been kicking ass.
