Mark, Parker and I set out to do an aesthetic line that had peaked our attention last season. The “Oh What Big Eyes You Have” Couloir sits off of East East Red peak. It consists of a steep continuous ski, down a 20 ft hallway made up of tall cliffs on either side.
- Date: May 7, 2021
- Distance: approx. 9.5 miles round trip
- Elevation Gain: 3700‘
- Trailhead: Gore Range Trail
We got up early for another ski, but after our adventure on La Plata, this start felt fairly mild. We started up the Gore Range trail in the dark, enjoying the well traveled trail into the North Willow creek basin. When we reached about 10,000′ we headed off the trail and started a more direct route to East East Red peak. Following the drainage up, navigation was fairly straight forward, although the hike through the trees felt long. As we got higher up we enjoyed incredible views of the peaks surrounding the basin, especially East Thorn.
When we reached the base of the couloir, we hadn’t had a full view of it on our approach, but were excited by what we could see. We strapped in crampons and grabbed mountaineering axes as we started into the steeper pitch of snow.
The hike up was straight forward, but we knew the top of the couloir was seeing sun much before we were. When we saw a small sluff of warm snow come down, we decided to move our turnaround time up in order to avoid any potential rockfall caused by the warming sun. We transitioned in sight of the ridge and made our way down (Team Never Summit at it again!). We took turns skiing, making cautious turns in the narrow corridor. Mark led us through the pinch spot where the band of snow is only ski wide, but from there the skiing mellowed out. While the run was narrow, it wasn’t particularly steep, so it felt manageable the whole way down.
Parker captured so many amazing photos of this trip! These photos do better justice to the experience than any words! After enjoying the fun skiing and beautiful line, we headed back the way we came in. The exit was simple as we roughly followed our tracks back out to the trail and then out to the trailhead. We sat for a few minutes, enjoying the warm afternoon sun and one another’s company before we headed out to our respective responsibilities.