Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2000 11:12:59 -0600
With a goal of climbing one of the couloirs on James Peak, Kevin Craig and I left Denver Sunday morning at 0500 and cramponed up St Mary's Glacier. At 7 AM the snow was very hard. We were trying out strap-on Stubai aluminum crampons and they worked great, including front pointing and climbing the couloir. The consolidated snow on the Glacier is really dirty and my pants and pack were filthy after glissading the headwall at the end of the day. (I'm glad BMS moved the Hard Snow Day up to June.)
We traversed several snowfields and rock talus high above James Peak Lake to avoid the 700 foot descent down to the Lake. James' East face is intimidating and braided with at least five steep couloirs. We both decided Super Star with the huge overhanging cornice at the top and 5.4 rock climb to escape the couloir below the cornice was above our confidence and maybe abilities. Super Star couloir is long and looks steep, steep, steep. In fact, I think all the couloirs on James are under rated - they all looked at least as steep as Dead Dog (which is rated Class 3 and 45 degrees). Kevin wasn't feeling 100% (he'd climbed the Dead Dog couloir on a CMC trip the day before) so we opted for the easier North facing Starlight couloir. The snow was very hard and it was difficult to kick steps. Luckily, most of the climb we were able to take advantage of steps kicked by earlier climbers. (We only saw one other climber on the couloirs.) Starlight was about 45 degrees and 500 feet vertical, as steep in some sections as Dead Dog. We topped out on the James Peak SE ridge at noon; climbing the couloir took an hour. I continued up the ridge 0.3 miles to the summit of James Peak.
The couloirs appear to be in good condition, and not yet melted out at the tops. The snow was great and still crampon hard at noon. All the couloirs except Starlight were gray/brown with fans of debris that had been falling down the couloirs. A helmet would probably be a good idea with the unpredictable rock fall. Looking down the various steep couloirs from the ridge (very precarious overlooks!) reinforced our opinion that the couloirs are all at least 45 degrees in the steeper sections. From the top they seemed to be closer to vertical. It appears that the couloirs will be in great shape for climbing for several more weeks.
Doug Cook