Helmet Falls 300m V, WI4



The first peek at Helmet falls on the approach.



Yesterday was a big one! Skied up to climb Helmet Falls and came back... an 18hr day.

                Approach:

Left from the Ink Pots parking lot at 5:00am on skis and arrived at the base of the climb by 11:30am. Once past the Ink Pots we broke trail up Ochre Creek and then skied up Helmet Creek to reach the falls. The creek is open almost the whole way up which made it easy to refill our water supply. Roughly 16km of skiing on the approach... and another 16km back. Two hazards: A few avalanche slopes & cougars.



Climbing up the snow slope bellow the main falls.



The approach crosses a few avalanche slopes. After crossing the first one (wide!) we had lost the trail and needed to search a little since it was still dark. We came across what must have been a cougar kill because there were very fresh tracks everywhere and it smelled like something had died nearby! Needless to say we got out of there quickly. Oh and there were fresh cougar tracks on top of our approach ski tracks on the way out.

    The climb:


Bellow the main falls was a 20m section (WI3) which we didn't rope up for. A wide 150m gully was above and we needed to wallow in knee deep snow to reach the big wall of ice. The snow was stable enough not to be concerned of avalanche risks. We climbed the route in 3 long pitches (70m double ropes). The ice on the first pitch had a layer of old ice that needed to be removed to take good screws. I didn’t have too many screws placed lower on the pitch because we had originally planned to simul-climb part of the route. That idea changed once I was 60m up and noticed how heavy the rope was and the climbing was a little harder than expected. It took some getting used to climbing with the ski touring boots. The rest of the climb had great ice. Pat led the second pitch on great hero ice and I led the third and last pitch. On the last steep step I was getting pretty pumped and felt tired from our long day.



Three rappels off of V-threads got us back onto the snow gully. We found a rappel station (piton and nuts) on the climber’s right side to rappel down the 20m step below the main falls. We made it back to the parking lot slightly before 11:00pm. We spent the whole day in touring boots (including the climb). The blisters on my feet aren't pretty and the loss of a toe nail still made it worth it.



View from the top of the climb and looking back at our return. No highway to be seen nearby.