Cali Ice & Chamonix Couloir Link Up
Beartooth Range, MT
Dates: 3/23/22
Strava Link: https://www.strava.com/activities/6872750898
Trip Report:
Compared to last season, I’ve been focusing more on climbing and haven’t spent much time on skis but one of my goals for this season was completing the Cali Ice - Chamonix Couloir link up. I made tentative plans with my buddy Aidan and thankfully the weather looked like it would be very conducive to our plans.
We left Bozeman at 3:30 AM and we were on the trail by 6:00 AM. I’m always surprised how reasonable it is to day trip it to East Rosebud from Bozeman. We started in ski boots due to the short distance between the trailhead and where you leave the trail for Cali Ice. The trail was mostly dry, and we were starting to doubt how ski conditions would be in the Cham and the apron below it. Once we left the trail, we were greeted with ~800 ft of navigating boulders and deadfall in ski boots which is always fun. We stayed on the climbers left side of the approach drainage and eventually found better snow coverage. After a short bout of post holing, we popped the skis off our packs and started skinning. The creek bottom opened up so we dropped into it to avoid the sidehilling. We were soon greeted with some short, approach ice flows in the creek bottom so we put the skis back on the packs and racked up. The approach ice was a nice warm up before reaching the main headwall.
Surprisingly, no boot pack was in, but conditions were mostly favorable for booting below the headwall. We hit some sections of wallowing, but it was mostly knee deep booting. Surprisingly, you can’t see the main ice headwall for most the of approach. When it finally came into view after turning the last corner of the approach drainage, it was breathtaking. I had seen countless photos of it, but photos don’t do justice to 200m of continuous ice. Aidan kindly let me take the leads on the ice. The first pitch was ~50m and ended in a hanging belay. I think if I would have continued up a little further and stretched out the 60m rope, I would have been able to belay from a better ledge. The second pitch was a full 60m and I built a comfortable belay in an ice bulge above the main headwall. Both initial pitches were WI4+ I’d say. The first pitch was slightly less steep, but the ice was bulletproof, featureless alpine ice and felt a little harder. Climbing in ski boots with ski on the back made the ice feel significantly more challenging. At no point did I feel like there was a chance of falling, it was more just enduring the sustained calf pump that comes with climbing in ski boots. Swinging tools with skis on your back also can be challenging and slightly annoying at times. However, there was no part of me that wishes I did it in any other style. Skiing the Cham would be exponentially more enjoyable than the standard walk off down the north side of the plateau.
Above the main headwall, we decided to simul the rest of the terrain and found ~100m of WI3 that we quickly dispatched. The upper ice was extremely wet, and it didn’t take long before my soft-shell pants were soaked through. Thankfully, the sun was out, and they didn’t take long to dry. From here, it was another 900 ft to the plateau. It was thigh deep in most places and it was no gimme to top out the plateau. There was a small amount of ice right at the top of the drainage that we mostly skirted around by staying on snow.
We once again transitioned back to skinning and we’re very thankful to have the skis as the snow was quite deep on the plateau. I was expecting barren, wind board on the plateau but we found soft conditions very conducive to skinning. It had snowed ~10” three days prior, and surprisingly the snow on the plateau was neither wind nor sun affected. I had mentally underestimated that we still had 1200 ft to climb to get from the top of Cali Ice to the top of the Chamonix Couloir. As with most spring missions, there was a sense of urgency to start our ski descent in a race against the rising temperature. It felt pretty scorching on the plateau with the lack of clouds or wind but surprisingly, the snow surface was staying dry.
We made it to the top of the Chamonix Couloir a little after 2:00 pm and took a moment to eat and drink while transitioning for the long-awaited ski down. We were pretty excited for what was in store as all the snow we encountered throughout the day that was in the shade (and the same aspect as the Cham) was cold powder. Looking down the Cham from the top, it looked like there was a slight choke you could sidestep through, so I offered to drop in first. After a few turns, I discovered that the choke was actually an ice bulge. Thankfully, I still had my harness on so I took one of my ice tools off my pack, drove it as deep as I could into the ice, and tethered in direct to the tool while I transitioned back into crampons. Once back in crampons, we downclimbed the little bit of ice at the very top and transitioned back to skis no more than 100 ft from the plateau. The first few turns were sharky, but conditions quickly improved, and we were greeted to over 4,000 ft of glorious powder skiing in one of the most picturesque couloirs. You know the skiing is good when you feel the need to video your partner every time you stop to pitch it out.
I was weary of how the ski out to the trail would be from the base of the couloir, but thankfully we were able to follow a previous party’s track and we were able to ski all the way to the trail which was shocking after how dry the start of the approach to Cali Ice was.
We were both pretty worked by the time we got to the trail but beyond stoked on an awesome day playing in the mountains. What’s even more remarkable is that this was Aidan’s first trip to East Rosebud or the Beartooths in general. After a few miles of slogging out dry trail in sweat-soaked ski boots, we were back at the truck. Total C2C time was 10:45 which I was happy with given the trail breaking conditions we encountered. I’m proud of how efficient we moved throughout the day. If there’s a better ice climbing to skiing link up in the lower 48, I’d love to know what it is. This was without a doubt one of my favorite days out in the mountains.
