Comments on: El Diente Descents, South Side Couloir and Repeat of DeVore Route

By: Lou

Lou — Thu, 24 May 2007 23:21:03 +0000

PI, thanks for getting us up to speed on the history, appreciate it. Nothing like claiming a first to get the info coming out of the woodwork, eh? I’ll correct the post. ‘best, Lou

By: PI

PI — Thu, 24 May 2007 22:40:16 +0000

The “Mahogany ” coiloir on El Diente was skied from the top about 15 years ago by Bruce Ericson, Neil Ringstad, Peter Inglis and other Telluriders.

By: Dav

Dav — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:39:08 +0000

For DB and Lou and Jordan,
I emailed with Jordan the other day and told him that had he done a “complete” descent from Wetterhorn’s summit I would have hopped in the car and driven right down there to do it myself, but since it was a downclimb, both with skis off and with skis on, it doesn’t change anything in my book. Wetterhorn still awaits a true summit ski descent, but it is possible, on the right day.

By: Will Stenzel

Will Stenzel — Thu, 03 May 2007 04:46:37 +0000

In May few years ago, I was doing the El Diente-Wilson traverse, and stuck my ice axe in the big cornice between the two peaks. The cornice disappeared, along with my ice axe. Some sketch downclimbing ensued down that col you skied. That afternoon, I watched an incredible lightning storm over the peaks.

Thanks for your head-to-head binding review. I ski the Naxo 21’s and was always wondering how they’d stack up against that “other” heavy binding.

–will

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 02 May 2007 19:14:08 +0000

Interesting discussion, only time will tell what the new standard will become on Wetterhorn.

In rockclimbing or mountaineering, someone can always stand on top of others’ achievements and improve upon them, by going faster, harder, free-er, without oxygen, etc. Hillary and Norgay will always be first, but a tremendous amount of respect will always be given to Messner for going solo, as well as without oxygen. That doesn’t mean a new standard has been created, but better style is how many will think of it.

So, in the future I think that it will be better style to ski Wetterhorn from the summit. I don’t think this means, however, that Dawson or Davenport need feel any responsibility to re-do Wetterhorn, any more than Hillary should have re-done Everest without oxygen. Nor do I think that Sean, CW, TM, or anyone else close to finishing the 14ers should redo Wetterhorn. At this point, had I not already skied Wetterhorn from the ship’s prow, I would want to try to get it from the top. As DB said, part of the 14er summit ski game is waiting for conditions. Which is why Davenport ended up having more trouble (in some ways) getting Long’s and Shavano than he did on Pyramid and Capital. The line I want on Long’s is the North Face Cables route, and to be honest I wonder if that has snow on it less often than the summit ramp of Wetterhorn.

One last point is how public someone is with their claims. Anyone who wants to nitpick the descents that Davenport or Dawson made can do so- it’s all there on the web, what they did, what they didn’t do. If someone skis Wetterhorn from the ship’s prow and feels good about it, that’s their prerogative, but if they claim to ski them all, it would be nice to let others know what they did or didn’t do, so some standards on something so gray can be met.

My worthless $.02 deposited…