Terminator Chutes, Crested Butte. 2.4.09

[goldenboy]

Advance apologies for the lack of ski photos. More of a mountaineering TR.

Tereminator 4 chute. mtnbikerskierchick, goldenboy, non-mag Hutch. 2.4.09


Standing proudly over the town of Crested Butte lies the impressive monolith of the same name. Some people like to call it "Mount" Crested Butte, or Crested Butte "mountain", but the fact is that a butte is simply an isolated mountain, making Crested Butte a perfect name. So calling it Crested Butte mountain is like calling Everest "Mt. Everest Peak Mountain". While the ski area is found on Crested Butte's N side, the imposing W and S sides are what is most readily seen from the town. If the rock were better, Crested Butte would be a climbing destination, but the rock is generally pretty poor.


Inbounds at the Crested Butte ski area, one can find runs such as Total Recall and Predator. I'm not sure where the history of naming runs after Schwarzenegger movies started, but the tradition continued out of bounds on the W face, with the Terminator chutes, numbered 1-5, and commonly called T1, T2, etc.. Given that all but T1 require a rappel, Terminator seems to be a fitting name.

Crested Butte's W face. T1 is looker's left, while T3 drops down the center.


With warm temps and an avalanche danger on W faces at "low", mbsc and I decided that an attempt of the Terminator chutes sounded like a good idea. The only problem was that neither of us were capable of leading the difficult mixed rock/snow/ice pitch that guards access to the couloirs. So, I gave my friend Hutch a call, who has been climbing and snowboarding hard this season, anticipating an upcoming trip to Chamonix. He was equally keen on the idea, so we met up early in the morning in town (how many trailheads are "in town"!?). We quickly gained the 1,000'+ of vertical and passed by the bottom of T1 and T2.


The early morning views of town and Mt. Axtel were excellent:


We continued to make our way up towards T3, the plum of the bunch, and our intended goal of the day.


Unfortunately, T3 looked to be very difficult, with just a touch of verglass on thin, sloping holds.


We decided to check out T4, a route that I had previously climbed and skied 3 years ago with don pedro. This looked much more promising, so we geared up and Hutch started towards the cliff. As don pedro found out 3 years ago, the somewhat easy looking cliff turns out to be anything but. Asked what grade the route might be, Hutch responded with, "mixed-hard as I would do with ski gear". The pics do it no justice-- it's a hard climb, I promise.


Hutch was able to place one piece of protection fairly low, but that was it, so I guess his rating also needs a run-out asterisk.


After a 60m pitch, Hutch reached the stopper nut that don pedro and I had left 3 years ago. Guess it was a solid placement mbsc was next to climb, eventually finding a key foot placement that got her through the crux.


I followed and we regrouped at the anchor above. The snow here was not what we had hoped for. Expecting the recent warms temps to have solidified the surface, we instead found thin sugar snow, crusts, and slabby conditions. "Low" though the danger rating may have been, we found ourselves in an anomoly which was not "low" at all. After a bit of discussion, we determined that it was time to call it a day and head back down. Not without a look up at the beautiful upper pitches of T4:


I rapped first:


Hutch making his way down:


All that was left was the ski back down to town. The snow was variable, depending on how much sun it had received, but we found some nice turns along the way, Hutch:


gb:


mbsc:


While we didn't get to ski what we really wanted to, we were still able to get some good climbing practice in, right there in our own backyard. It's a tough little pitch that left Hutch feeling ready to head to Chamonix, mbsc feeling like she learned some things from her ice climbing course earlier this winter, and I was psyched that I can still turn around when I know I should.

[knarshedmotatoes]

way to get after it. nice rock climbing too.

[adrenalated]

Truly badass. Those chutes catch my eye every time I'm in CB, but are way above my ability.

[Meadow Skipper]

Great pics and TR! Y'all gave it a good shot. Those climbing shots are awesome.

[Z]

good try, guys!

Have been wondering if there have ever been tracks up there. Almost looks like T3 could be skied without rap in the best of best conditions/year. The rocks must heat up that face like no other...

[Tyrone Shoelaces]

radness!

[Dside11-11]

As jealous as I could be without wanting to have been there. Good work kids!

[goldenboy]

Forgot to mention this very important detail: before we left, we threw this in the crockpot:

I do a yummy Peanut stew... veggie if you want it or add a bunch of browned chicken bits:

1 can black beans (drained)
1 can corn
1 can diced tomatoes
1 can coconut milk
1 cup peanut butter
some chopped up green peppers
some chopped up carrots
some chopped up onions
couple-a-cloves of galric
cyanne pepper (1-2 tsp)
1 tsp cinnemin
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ginger
2 tsp chilli pepper
1 package chicken broth / boulion cube or some such

I think thats it, sick it in the pot, turn it on and go skiing.

be sure there is enough liquid to cover everything... usually not a problem with the coconut milk... but add water if you need to.

have a yummy ski season!!

Super tasty and filling (we added chicken). Thanks skibee!

[brettf]

way to get after it and make the call to play it safe. nice work guys.

[Trackhead]

Cool lines!

[thefrush]

Discretion is the better part of valor. Well played, good pics, you'll bag it next time.

[Unfrozen Caveman Lawyer]

Suh-weet. Great lead on that! Wish I had anything remotely this cool in my quiver of abilities....

[RoanMtnMan]

Way to take advantage of the conditions. Respect on the training mission. Crock pots are great.

[grskier]

Way to make the day an adventure...

[Xover]

one of the more enjoyable TRs of the season (for me personally) so far.

thanks for taking the time to snap pix and type the words

[Squirrel99]

that had to be the least traveled / closest to 'town' TR's you've done

nice to have that in your backyard. and good on having the judgement call too. btw enjoyable write up.

[hartzejr]

All your TRs are impressive and very interesting. Makes me want to get off my ass and hike (which I need ). Very cool. Can't wait for the successful attempt!

Is T5 the narrow colly with the big dark shadow at the cliff? Future endeavor for ya?

[MarkoInTheBoat]

Hutch can tell ya that splitboarding is fun no matter how variable the conditions are.
Rad set-up he's got going too.

[Don Pedro]

Wow. Agro attempt. Good on MBSC getting up the crux. We had a friend who couldn't make it up that one day. If you could have just made it around the corner I bet the snow would have gotten a little better, but you probably still wouldn't have gotten above the next cliff (you know the one).

Here is a shot from when we were up there to give a little perspective on where you were heading.

[IMG]

[cold_smoke]

Sweet!!!!
I'm sure it was fulfilling regardless, and you will appreciate that practice sesh later in the season.

[hutash]

Nice work, too bad the skiing wasn't what you had hoped for, but still looks like a fun climb even in ski gear.

[dookeyXXX]

nice. nice. and nice.

the climbing it out of my league (never been one for dangling from a rope), but i dug the pix and write-up all the same.

looking to be in CB sometime the week of 16-20 just for a day (doing the Denver to Monarch/Wolf Mountain/Crested/Purgatory swing that week), so you helped with the pre-trip stoke.

danke gracias.

[^^^]

Nice climbing outing. Sucks you didn't reach your goal, but it looks like you got some great work and practice in.

Fun looking lines there, in the backyard.

[mtnbikerskierchick]

This pitch was certainly challenging to my skills as a mountaineer, which makes it fun. And it is so nice having this literally in our backyard. I can't wait to get back again!

Is T5 the narrow colly with the big dark shadow at the cliff? Future endeavor for ya?

Here's a pic that may help some of you. The yellow arrows point to the ski area. I would love it if you could just traverse out the ski area and then ski the Terminator chutes, but it is illegal- probably for good reason since 3 of them have cliffs on the bottom The pink marks T1 to T5, from left to right.


I still would love to get back there and do T3. It is definitely the most appealing-looking one to ski!

Wow. Agro attempt. Good on MBSC getting up the crux. We had a friend who couldn't make it up that one day. If you could have just made it around the corner I bet the snow would have gotten a little better, but you probably still wouldn't have gotten above the next cliff (you know the one).

dp- It's amazing how, looking at it, you think- 'Meh, that's not so hard. I can do that easily.' And then when the thing is staring you in the face, you realize you're dealing with a whole lot more that you bargained for. After I slipped for like the 5th time in the crux, I really wasn't sure if I could make it. My hands were SO cold. I could barely even feel them. But, I sat back and just said, 'Okay, it's now or never' and then I made it. Huge kudos to Hutch for leading the first pitch. There's no way in hell I would have even tried this thing without a belay.

I thought what you thought- we'd probably have better snow just around the corner. But, I was okay with not going on. All of us were a bit worried about the sugar. And I knew if we tried to go much further, I'd probably be really late for my 3:30 work time

[Ireallyliketoski2]

sickness, the skis in the photos make it that much radder, even if you didn't get to actually ski.