The lack of snow is good for something...more climbing!
The Maid of the Mist is a spectacular mountain that has offered another route on it's northeast face. A splendid sliver of ice hangs down to the right of "Nate Opp's route". Kyler Pallister and I headed up there this last month to see if we could access the ice via a mixed section of atypical hyalite choss. Two days and six bolts later we were ready to have a final go at it. J. Griffin joined us for the day and it ended up being a great one.
The approach is pretty straight forward after you do it three times. Use the skin track set to the Maid until you gain the Col. keep looking to your left and try to head for the middle band in the face, that will traverse you around to the south to the base of the climb. Be mindful of this traverse, with bad snow conditions it could prove dangerous.
P1: Climb past six bolts until you reach the ice. Gaining the ice proved to be the crux of the route at M7. Continue up the ice until you reach a ledge and belay off to the right. 35m
P2: Wrap back around to the left and up a wonderful pitch of ice, thread the needle and up the last steep section of ice to the top W5+ 30m
The Dirty Maid
M7 WI5+
- Log in to post comments
Some Pictures
Don't think Josh's pictures uploaded so here are some of the Dirty Maid.
.
Wow. Real nice. Keeping it clever down there I see.
Approach length?
How long did it take you to do the approach?
length of approach
I would say it took about 2 hours the last day we went up there. It's tough saying though, the first two times we went up there it took 3 hours, mainly due snow conditions and not nailing that middle travese ledge. Getting out is much easier and took about 45 min. There is an awesome section of old spruce trees, nicely spaced and fun to ski through, that you want to aim for on the way out. You can ski the gut of Maid out (with one rappel) or head back to the skin track and head out that way. hope that helps.