North Mt. Massive: Luna Couloir; East Ridge

On June 6, 2012, while hiking to both summits of Champion, we spotted this line on the southwest side of North Mt Massive: the couloir left of the summit in the center in the first picture. On June 3, 2013, Katie Larson, Starr Jamison, and I woke early and headed to the North Half Moon Trail to give it a try. The line was in, the ascent was fine, if a bit tiring at the very end, and the descent down the southwest facing couloir was in perfect corn conditions. The first and last pictures show the line (I call it Luna Couloir) in the center; our ascent was by the left slopes, with some use of ski crampons. The difference between early June 2012 and 2013 is remarkable!

On June 14, 2014, Chet Roe and I headed to the same area. There was much less snow, so gaining the ridge to the Divide was tedious. We were tired at 13900 and so skied the broad face heading back down just west of the Luna couloir. It was fairly steep for a bit. Ski conditions were fine.

On January 18, 2009, Bob Portmann, Jonathan Kriegel, and I got high on the east ridge of North Mt. Massive, but were too far away from the summit to go for it. Skiing was heinous, but Bob still had fun (see photo below).