Igor's Kuchamala: Longs Peak attempt (part 2).

Continuing with the Long's story...

After ~4 hours of hiking we got to Chasm Lake at about 7am. We took a break on the shore of the frozen lake and had some tea before starting on our main goal: Lamb's Slide. It's a long moderately steep (sustained ~40-45 degrees) couloir on the left of the Mills Glacier:

This photo was taken from over Chasm Lake (Lamb's Slide is hidden by a rock buttress). A few interesting facts: Broadway is a system of sloping ledges, and Kiener's route is something that I would love to climb this summer. One needs to get to the top of Lamb's Slide, then traverse the Broadway to the base of the Notch couloir and follow further (green line). The climbing is not difficult, 5.4-5.5, but the elevation and exposure should make it a very fun undertaking. Especially considering the approach with all the gear. We'll see...

From Chasm Lake, we had to get to the base of the Lamb's Slide, and that wasn't easy. Crossing the lake was a blast, no postholing, just a walk on an ideally leveled ice powdered with a little snow. But once the lake was crossed, the angle picked up, and snow became deeper:

Morgan was breaking the trail, and finally we got to the base on the couloir. Here is a photo of the Chasm Lake from the base of Lamb's Slide:

Getting there wasn't particulary easy, and we had a long way to go:

That's the Lamb's Slide, as viewed from its base, Mills Glacier. This couloir got his name after Reverend Elkanah J. Lamb's near-fatal tumble from it. During summer and early autumn the couloir is all iced, so it's practically impossible to self-arrest if you slip on it. One has to use running belays to safely climb it. On the other hand, there is no avalanche danger when it's one big solid piece of ice. You win some you loose some :-). In our case the snow wasn't very well consolidated making it very easy to self-arrest but difficult to climb. Before starting climbing the couloir, Morgan and I carved a ledge in snow and roped up. We hauled the rope all this way, we simply had to use it :-). If anything, it was mostly for glacier techniques practice. Once we got the rope figured out, I went ahead and started to kick steps up the Slide:

I must say, that was a hard work. Especially in the lower section of the couloir, where snow was loose and I was sinking to my knees. Higher up snow got firmer, and climbing got a lot more pleasant. To give you an idea, it's like climbing a very steep staircase, but with no steps: you need to kick them in first. And the couloir just keeps going, and going, and going. Slowly, we were getting higher:

The views were breathtaking. The Diamond was dominating on our side, like a huge sea of granite:

Finally, we got to the top of Lamb's. At ~11-30am. It took us more than 4 hours to get there! Last 100 meters were fun, to say the least. A very good workout indeed. Here is a photo of Broadway taken from there. It looks like a really exciting traverse:

We took a shot break and assessed the situation. It was almost noon, and very warm. In order to get to the Loft, we had to cross the top of the Flying Dutchman couloir:

We've been hiking for about 9 hours at this point, and snow conditions were becoming unstable (we saw a really pretty loose snow avalanche going from the corner of Broadway and Chasm View Wall). We had at least 3 more hours to go to the summit, possibly even more. So the decision wasn't difficult: we had a great day, and there was no point in pushing our luck. We decided to turn around:

We glissaded down Lamb's Slide and hiked back to Chasm Lake. It took less then one hour to get down (and more than four hours to get up). We spent about an hour there resting and enjoying the scenery. Finally, it was time to go: we had to cross a snow field and hike back to the parking lot. The snow was turning into a slush, we were getting worried about wet slab avalanches, so we pushed ahead. It was interesting in spots: