First climb 2019

First Climb of 2019

We just wanted to get out and do a climb for 2019. Weather was supposed to be good and it was!  We focused on SEWS, either SW Coulior or the Arete depending on traffic.  There were abut 10 cars already parked along the Blue Lake trail and several pulling over where they could as we put our packs and us together.  Turns out there was no one on SEWS and only one other party we could see in the gully between Liberty Bell and Concord.  Everyone else was on skis or boards.  We choose the SW Coulior for the fun of it.  There was plenty of firm snow most of the way to the top, just a bit of rock and scree near the top.  We climbed over some boot prints, but not much traffic before us.  We kept our crampons on untill the very top of the gully taking them off to finish the scramble to the top.  We could see Baker, Glacier, Goodie, Black and a million others.   Several rap stations off a tree at the  top, pitons half way down on skiers left and another tree later.  Could have downclimbed, but it was all set up...although dated slings...  Snow was softening up quite a bit  by noon, but finished down climbing the coulior and hiked out with out postholing for the most part.