Sayres Peak: Grand Central Couloir and X-Rated

I spotted this one when approaching La Plata in 2001. It looked superb for skiing! The summit (left of first photo) is 13738 feet and the north face is impressive. On July 2, 2002, Jonathan Kriegel and I climbed the couloir in partial shadow on the left with ice ax and crampons and got a good look down the grand central couloir from the summit. In fact, it is not terribly steep at all. There is a curious USGS benchmark on the summit with an engraved altitude that is 1000 feet too low. Photo taken from the trail up La Plata on June 15, 2001, after a large snowstorm.

Well, it took three or four years and two tries, but finally I attained the (west) summit of Sayres with skis on my back (May 23, 2004, with Jonathan Kriegel). We then skied the Grand Central Couloir (also known as the North Couloir route). What a beauty! Conditions were perfect and I did 101 turns in one drop on descent. The approach is a bit heinous, with a bushwhack from the La Plata trail into the valley and then, for us, a long bit of step-kicking up the W side of the valley to gain the saddle to the right in the photo below. It might well be more efficient to just boot up the couloir, perhaps with an ice ax (later parties have done this; one fellow went up the steep terrain just west of the grand central couloir and reported it as “sketchy post-holing hell”). The valley, peak, and couloir are well worth a visit, but it would be nicer if the willows were covered with snow, meaning an earlier date. But perhaps an even better approach is to climb the peak from the south and, after the descent, climb to the La Plata–Sayres col (easy) and return to the start.

We got a good view of a couloir, and debris, on the west side of La Plata that claimed the life of a hiker (glissading, with ice ax) in March 2004 when it avalanched. Our ascent route was via moderate ground on the far right of the photo. The enthusiast will notice that there are steeper lines that one can take from the true summit, notably the direttissima route dropping straight off the top. I called that X Rated because of the X feature at the top, and I was pleased to ski it in 2006.

June 10, 2006. Katie Larson and I wanted to ski Grand Central Couloir. But our first view after hiking up the first part of the La Plata Trail was depressing, as the route was more scree than snow. Clearly we had missed the snow train in Grand Central. What to do? Well, the answer was obvious from Katie’s point of view, as there was only only skiable line from the summit. I was well aware of it (see my comment about “the enthusiast” at end of Grand Central section), but it looked steep in the best of conditions, and these were not the best of conditions. Moreover, there would be a rock-scrambling section to connect the skiable parts.

Well, up we went. After all, who wants to carry skis and boots so far and not use them. We gained the saddle on the W side with no problem and carried on to the summit (just under 5 hours). The drop in to the top of the east branch of the X, which is just east (looker’s left) of the summit (which itself is the leftmost bump), wasn’t bad. Indeed, the upper section is not all that steep, but the entire line does not let up, and it got slushier the lower we went. Then we had to carry our skis down about 100 vertical feet on loose rock to get to the top of the last 1000-foot section. Well, this should have been excellent, and it was in fact fine, but the slushiness led to small avalanches that one had to pay a little attention to.

Anyway, we did it. Of course, one should do this when the coverage is better and there are some other options as to how to finish after one passes through the center of the X. Some map work shows that the upper 1000 feet averages 40˚. In June, 2005, Dave Bourassa and Mark Caveillero skied X-Rated, with Dave dropping in from the very summit, which he reported at 48˚. They approached via the mining roads on the west side, starting at 3 am and summitting at 8 am.

I guess another good reason for my choice of name is that this line would be at least a D10 on the difficulty scale (http://wildsnow.com)—and also R3 on the risk scale. Dave Bourassa suggests D13 for the steeper entrance on the other branch of the X.