Colorado Ski Descents
Dawson-Perlmutter & Malamute's NW Face
Cathedral Peak & Malamute Peak Ski Descents, June 3rd 2024
While on a trip in the elks on Sopris, Garrett, and Cathedral's Pearl Couloir the prior weekend, we saw that conditions on the east face of Cathedral were holding on. A week of warm temps and poor freezes threatened our chances of success, but we were hopeful that it still had a chance. It was June 3rd, and the early summer heatwave was just about to set in. We had a moderately good freeze all the way down to 12k feet along with clear skies. Our alarms went off at 3:45. We flew through the approach and were greeted with an incredible sunrise route around treeline.
The switchbacks were far less miserable than the prior weekend, and we had significantly less 5th class mud bullshitting to do. We transitioned to skis at the top of them and then headed down to the lake. Pearl greets you right away but you can hardly see the face of cathedral until you're right under it. We were nervous about if there would be snow left, but super confident in the freeze quality which made it a lot easier to push on.
Skinning from the lake to the base of the couloir was easy, and required only a tiny amount of sidehilling. As we crested the hill above the lake, we were greeted with one of the most stunning faces I have ever skied. Oh how much I love the Elks!! If this were in the Front Range it would undoubtedly have lost all of its snow to ripping winds. We could see that the face and the couloir were in, but the transition between them and the crux of the couloir remained hidden behind rocks. The only thing we could do was hope for the best!
The booting was pretty efficient, while a little punch at first, the majority of the climbing considted of gentle french steps sinking about 2 inches in. When we approached the first crux, we saw that there was enough snow to ski!! Just had to point them straight 😃. From here on out, the snow became especially firm, and if it werent for my crampon breaking, we would've flew to the top. After playing in chossy 3rd class for a while, I decided to put my faith in broken crampons over the massive loose pile of shit that is cathedral. Luckily, they decided to hold!!
The pitch mellowed significantly at the col at the top of the couloir, we were presented with a few options here. Dawson and Perlmutter entered the couloir here, but another trip report skiied farther down the face. We knew the snow wasn't continuous up here, so we debated if we wanted to risk dropping to the other potential crossing. The ridge itself climbed mostly easily, however, during one small rock bit where the snow had melted out, I accidentally sent 5 2 foot boulders down at Christian 😬. Sorry! Lucikly he dodged them but reminded us to never let your guard down out here!.
Past the choss, it was a walk up to the summit! As we sat in the unrelenting 35 mph winds, we debated waiting for the snow to warm up or just skiing in ice. The east face and couloir had been baking all morning, but either the wind or the air temperature kept it from getting to warm.
After about 20 minutes of procrastinating, we decided it was now or never. Taking my first turns down 50 degree snow over massive cliffs was defintely a feeling! Luckily, the upper face was pretty edgable. It couldve probably used another 30 to be perfect. We enjoyed some controlled, semi-linked jump turns, losing around 10 feet with every turn! The pitch eased near the bottom, where we took a little chossy ramp into the couloir. No continuous snow, but only about 10 feet of class 2 was fine by me! Despite how icy it was probably 40 minutes earlier, the snow in the couloir had softened to the perfect level of rippability. Despite being steeper and much narrower than the face, the smaller (but still present) exposure and pefect snow made it incredibly enjoyable! The crux was not turnable, probably a 4 foot wide stetch of snow about 20 feet long at around a 50 degree pitch. The col at the bottom flattened out and the snow was just good enough to point em' straight! It was a blast ripping from just above the crux through the apron non-stop! It's days like this that remind me why I love skiing so much. :)
Christian getting after it!
But this was not the end of the day. We, in fact, had another 13er to climb! Malamute's NW face is not quite as steep as Cathedral, really about 40 degrees on average, but the exposure on Malamute is as bad as Cathedral's is throughout the entire line. We swapped to skins to head up to a bench around 12,700, before switching back to skis to head to the base of the line at 12,400.
We switched back to skins heading as high as we could until it became too narrow for kick turns to have any sort of efficiency. Despite how late it was, Malamute being NW and cattycorner of Cathedral makes it super easy to link these 2 mountains. The boot up to the top was actually very quick and we gain around 800 feet in 40 minutes.
The summit view was incredible! We got to stare at Castle and Conundrum's east faces which I skied just a few weeks ago! The view of Cathedral was also incredible! This has got to be my favorite little corner of the Colorado Mountains. The ski down was super fun. Ripe corn and continous turns top to bottom. The way out was pretty straightforward, but lead us to another cheeky little straightline, but I'm not complaining!! The snow bridge at 10,600 had still yet to melt out, but I am sure it is gone now! The return to the car flew by even quicker than it did in the morning! We ended our day with a rightful feast at Steep's by the airport. All in all, I am still stunned by the quality of skiing we got in June! Incredible skiing on incredible lines with incredible people!