"S 6"

Route: North East Couloir
Posted On: 5/24/2024, By: VeraUndertow
Info: Followed Ben's conditions report from last June and climbed Wolcott east coulie and S6 north coulie. Super fun link up but the snow was pretty funky with lots of wet slide debris and the dust layer ball bearing snow. Started from Blue Lakes TH at 4:50 AM and hiked in Trail runners till I left the trail to get into the basin. Snow starts around 10,300 ft right before the wilderness sign but was nicely refrozen and supportive in the morning. I left the trail in an obvious clearing and headed west skinning for maybe half a mile before hitting a steep headwall near treeline and switching to crampons for the rest of the day. Climbed the wider and less steep couloir that goes north of Wolcotts summit. Topped out at 8:30 AM and dropped into the narrower couloir south because the snow looked smoother with less avy debris, but it was still a mess in there unfortunately so only a couple good turns and a lot of avoiding/hitting buried rocks. Cut hard to head toward the base of the North face of S6 and stopped at around 12,020 ft or something. Switched back to crampons and booted up the eastern couloir on the north face, which was not warm at all yet due to the wind, so I took my time as I climbed through very inconsistent avy debris and firm snow, as well as soft snow and breakable crust, every skiers favorite. The snow above 13000 ft was actually really nice cold wind buff to the top of the coulie at 13,360 so that was a treat. Then climbed up the very edge toward the rocks of the snow band that leads up to the summit. Dropped in around 11:30 and tried to ski whatever snow was slightly smooth and soft. The apron was honestly the highlight and I had perfect corn all the way back to the lower headwall before hitting the mash potatoes and eventually the trail where I switched pack to trail runners and tried to step in other people's post holes till the snow stopped. Got back to my truck around 12:45 so around 8 hours total. 

Route: South gully up, traverse to S5
Posted On: 10/15/2023, By: SnowAlien
Info: I was happy to discover that the ridge between S6 & S5 goes. I did the "standard" gully approach on the way up, but didn't want to reverse it and went for the traverse to S5 (which deceptively doesn't look too bad from S6). I think it looks much worse from S5 and it would be difficult to find the comfortable start of the downclimb, imo. But the traverse is actually pretty short and sweet and the route doesn't exceed Class 3 (all hard sections are bypassed). I was encouraged early on by the presence of cairns and pressed on. Step 1 - from S6 summit I reversed the route to the top of the "standard" gully. The cliff is bypassed on the right/south (Class 2+/3). Step 2 - next section (spiky rotten spires) is bypassed on the left/north, by dropping about 50 feet, class 2+. I had snow in that section. Step 3 - keep going to the base of spiky gray rock spires and circumvent them on the right/south side. Step 4 - find your way back up to the S5 ridge - I used semi-solid light gray rock band (would be difficult to see from above). Overall, the traverse took me less than half the time than the traverse between S7 and Mears a month ago, and felt similar difficulty, with very little elevation gain! Both summits had registers. Great combo with S4 & S3, 5,800 ft and 11 miles according to CalTopo. 

Route: Northeast Couloir
Posted On: 6/4/2023, By: supranihilest
Info: We did this route from Wolcott but it could easily be done by itself. From the basin draining the north side of "S 6" there's two obvious couloirs, one on each side of the summit, and a snowy but nearly vertical face between them. We took the left couloir as it was a lot more direct. The right couloir would probably entail a hefty ridge scramble. The left couloir is currently full of wet debris from a cornice fall perhaps a day earlier. The only somewhat difficult part was the top out which was probably 50+ degrees and required front pointing. From the top of the couloir it's something like 100 feet of snow to the summit. Be mindful of the cornice, the rest of which looks poised to fall. Note that the couloir splits maybe 200-300 feet below the top out; don't take the right branch as it leads across the north face and ends in a nearly vertical wall of broken rock. Absolutely insane views from "S 6" right now and this is perhaps the easiest way to do this peak. Having done it dry as well this was 100x easier owing to how loose and trashy the rock is dry. 

Route: Southwest Couloir
Posted On: 9/13/2021, By: supranihilest
Info: Starting from Deep Creek trailhead we took the Deep Creek trail to Whipple trail to Iron Mountain trail. The trail switchbacks in some seemingly odd places, so pay attention at switchbacks and trail junctions. The Iron Mountain trail eventually ends near an old mine. Beyond this is a lot of side hilling on annoying talus. In the middle of the basin is a stand of trees which give way to grass, get into these trees as soon as possible then follow the green 'til it's gone. There are a number of couloirs on the south face of "S 6". The first major couloir meets the summit ridge to the west of the summit and the second meets the summit ridge east of the summit. It's the second of these couloirs that is the easiest way to the summit, but on our ascent we accidentally went past it and climbed up some sketchy, extremely loose junk and slabs with hairy, exposed, dirt-covered ledges and other non-trivialities at about Class 3. The climbing wasn't hard but there was no trustworthy rock on this peak and the consequences of pulling off a block or a hold were dire. Eventually we reached the top of the second couloir mentioned above and realized the folly of our route. The southwest couloir on the other hand is merely Class 2+ on loose, moderate angle talus and boulders and atop the couloir it's Class 2+ on more of the same to the small summit. On the photos I marked a large tower at the top of the couloir that makes a good visual guide. On the GPX this couloir is the farther west/farther southwest, straighter line from the summit ridge.