Atlantic Peak (attempt) - 13,841 ft

Date: 11-13-05

Climbers: George Barnes, MarkDB

Route:  West Ridge, Class 2

RT distance:  5.4 miles

Elevation gain:  2,100 feet

USGS Quadrangle:  Copper Mountain

Trip Report:

Mark and I left the Mayflower Gulch 2WD TH at about 7:45 AM, not anxious to break trail though all the snow that had fallen the night before.  We'd opted to bring snowshoes and we were soon glad we did.

Mark broke trail up the Mayflower Gulch road until we were directly across from obvious drainage that leads to Pacific and Atlantic.  At this point we strapped on our snowshoes and traded the comforts of the road for deep unconsolidated snow and willows.  Our pace decreased pretty quickly and we took turns breaking through the new snow.  The valley remained very calm, but we could see high winds and blowing snow on Drift Peak and others.

As the drainage opened up we ascended a steep snow slope to Atlantic's west ridge.  At this point we were still entertaining ideas of Pacific Peak after Atlantic, though that would soon change.

Up to this point we had hiked under mostly clear skies with no wind, and I was wearing just a thermal layer.  As we progressed up the ridge, the wind picked up and I soon added a windstopper layer, balaclava, and goggles.  The ridge was only moderately snow-covered, so my snow shoes came on and off a couple times.  At about 12600ft Mark and I decided to cache our snowshoes, which we'd soon regret.  Without snowshoes we did our share of post holing in powder snow, often finding holes in the rocks under the snow.  This type of terrain is slow at best and dangerous at worst, so by 13100ft Mark and I were less than enthused about the last 1/4 mile to the summit.  The weather was quickly deteriorating, so after some soul searching we decided we didn't enjoy suffering *that* much, especially two days in a row.  It was hard to turn around this close to the summit, but we both knew there'd be nothing to see from the summit anyway.

The trip down went quickly on our packed snow trail.  Back on the road I conned Mark into accompanying me up to the cabins at the 4WD TH for some pictures.  The road out passed quickly as it was packed well by numerous XC and BC skiiers.