Mt. Owen - Run Don't Walk Couloir

Chris leading the WI4 pitch on RDW Couloir.

Date: April 24, 2021

Strava Link: https://www.strava.com/activities/5193902832;

Trip report:

My day on Mt. Owen with Chris was absolutely epic, and I don’t use that term lightly. The original plan was to go up Cascade Canyon until we hit McCain’s Pillar Couloir and then climb it until it intersects Run Don’t Walk Couloir (WI4). RDW Couloir tops out around 12,000 ft. From here, we would traverse the NE Snowfields until we intersected the east ridge and then take the Koven Route to the summit of Mt. Owen. From there, the plan was to ski the NE Snowfields back to Cascade Canyon. A very ambitious plan, so we decided a 1:30 am start was in order. As it would turn out, 1:30 AM was definitely not early enough. Or maybe we’re just too slow.

With the road closure, we had to start at Taggart Lake TH so it was 11 miles of flat skinning just to get to the base of McCain’s Pillar Couloir. We paralleled the road to stay on snow, but in retrospect, it would have been easier to just walk the road in running shoes. Or better yet, ride bikes. Chris’ wife, Jen, joined us for the skin in which made the approach fly by as she’s much more entertaining to talk to than Chris.

We started booting up at sunrise and Jen turned around once McCain’s Pillar Couloir got steep and there was enough light to ski. We were almost 6 hours into the adventure at this point and it didn’t even feel like the day had started with how much we had ahead of us. We ran into a delightful and unexpected 30m, WI3- flow about 2/3s of the way up the couloir. There was a way around it, but we came to climb ice so we threw on crampons and broke out the tools and simul-soloed it. In retrospect, it was probably the highlight of the day for me.

At last, we reached the top of McCain’s Pillar Couloir and met some very awkward slab climbing that we weren’t expecting just to get into RDW Couloir. Apparently, later in the season it ices over which makes for much easier climbing. We roped up here and were able to protect it with a few cams. Just getting into RDW Couloir was very challenging. There’s very little info out there on RDW Couloir, but we were expecting 3 pitches of thin WI4 with a bunch of steep snow in between. We finally reached the first pitch of WI4 and Chris led it like a champ in ski boots. It started out vertical and was brittle and featured. After climbing some steep snow, I led some WI2/3 until we hit the next pitch of WI4. The predicted winds were 20 mph with light snow predicted later in the day. We had been protected from the wind the whole time we were in RDW Couloir but all of a sudden, the spindrift started.

The first one sounded like thunder from above and we got rained down with loose, dry snow for a solid 2 minutes. Thinking it was over, we continued climbing and the spin drift continued. Every 5-10 minutes, we’d get hit with another wave of spin drift. To top it off, there was a huge snow covered chockstone in the couloir that proved to be impassable (for us). It turns to ice later in the season providing a way up. Turns out, we were a little too early in the season for the route to be in. Most of the alpine ice in the Tetons is in prime condition late in the summer. We made the very obvious decision to bail and decided to play it safe and rap down the entirety of RDW Couloir, even the steep snow sections. The spin drift had loaded up the couloir with several feet of new snow in less than an hour and it would not be a fun place to take a ride. The Ortenburger guide books declares: “The couloir provides three pitches of difficult ice climbing, but overall it is not a very safe route”. Now I understand why: the entire NE face of Mt. Owen funnels into RDW.

We made 6-7 raps off a combination of pitons, v threads, nuts, cams, and slung horns. FYI, there’s 2 shiny new BD ultralight cams that are up for grabs if you want to make the 12 mile approach. We didn’t find a single existing piton or anchor in RDW which is pretty crazy considering it’s the Tetons and tat is everywhere you look on most routes. I’m very curious how (in)frequently it’s climbed. After what felt like an eternity, we made our last rap and we were out of RDW Couloir and back into McCain’s Pillar Couloir. It was snowing pretty heavily at this point, so we skied cautiously and made it back to Cascade Canyon. I can’t describe the wave of relief that set in once we got back to the creek bottom.

We skied and skinned out to Jenny Lake and made it back to the (closed) road right at sunset. All that was separating us from the truck at this point was 4 miles of mindless road walking in ski boots. Thankfully, we had almost a full moon and we’re able to do the road walk without headlamps. We eventually got back to the truck at 10 pm, almost 21 hours and 27 miles after starting.

I would be surprised if the link up I had originally planned has been completed and I’ll definitely be back for redemption. Probably not for 2-3 years though. If you’re reading this and you know of someone who’s completed the link up, message me, I’m curious.