Silver Star: West Face Couloir 04/27/2025

Silver Star: West Face Couloir. 04/27/2025

On Sunday 4/27/25 Climbed Silver Star West Face Couloir with Ruslan. Started at 2:30 AM at the 166 mile pullout. Mostly followed GPX track to Burgundy Col. At “Burgundy Camp” at 6500 we left snowshoes and then traversed up and right under the Whine Spire West Face. The key to find the correct entrance gully is a view to the “Dorsal Fin” tower with its enormous cave. The snow in the couloir was mostly firm. The 1st chockstone goes at WI2. Closer to the “Dorsal Fin” the couloir splits and we took the right fork. Second chockstone goes at M2. Near the ridge the snow melted as this section gets more sun. Climbed short pitch of broken rock to a snowfield. From there we guessed the best exit which was the right gully with a short chimney of M3. We exited on a broad snow ledge and decided to visit summit without packs to save time. Tried snow gully from the East, but found unconsolidated snow on rock slabs. Climbed around the summit tower and took a gully from the West which was Ok. After a summit picture we downclimbed the gully belaying each other. We returned to our packs only to find ravens finishing our lunch. The correct descend to Silver Star glacier might be from the saddle between West and Main summit, but because we left the packs we decided to take one of the South facing snow couloirs. That was more difficult than it looked from above. Our couloir dead-ended on a rock slab and we had to leave a picket and make a short rappel. There was indeed a snow couloir connection to the glacier, but it was difficult to figure out from above. Returned through Burgundy col, came back to car at 6:20 PM.