Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Stanley Headwall

THE Headwall is for hard men only.  For three days we set our sights on The Headwall and three times we got it handed to us. Delicate, runout, steep and sandbagged are key words when describing the experience.

Day 1: After several hours of skiing it was determined that we had picked the wrong valley while ascending through the fog and were in Storm Creek. After a fun ski out to the car we decided to abort mission and head to the nearby Haffner Creek for some mixed action.

Storm Mountain - by John Giraldo

Disorienting fog - by John Giraldo

Half n' Half M7 - by John Giraldo

Day 2: With the correct trail determined we set our sites on The Uniform Queen. We found the route to be in very dry conditions with the crux pitch missing key ice sections but decided to give it a go regardless. After a runout M4 pitch Amos started up the WI5 pitch sans ice. After difficult "dryscratching" he called it a day at the next anchor and we lowered off.

Creek crossing fail haha - by John Giraldo
P1 a bit runout - by John Giraldo

Amos starting P2 - by John Giraldo

The Stanley Headwall - by John Giraldo

Suffer Machine is the main ice
flow, Uniform Queen is the ice
ribbon in the dark rock corner
-by John Giraldo

Day 3: Beaten but still eager for more we headed up yet again with The Suffer Machine on our mind. The guidebook recommends accessing the ice via the original aid line that has been since freed at M7 and so off we set towards the intimidating roof. After realizing it was above our skill level to free we decided to bail rather than pull on bolts. We then tried a route to the left of Suffer Machine but facing hard runout climbing we pointed our skis downhill, got some turns in and decided we would come back some day when we were stronger.

HUGE roof on Suffer Machine. I
am standing flush with the wall to
take the photo - by John Giraldo

Amos heading up to the roof after I bailed
-by John Giraldo

Yeah buddy Im learning how to make turns in my mountain
skis! - by John Giraldo

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