Little Joe's Pass

[erutan]

Meant to post this a while back, but here's some GPS coordinates taken going up it. I ended up starting in the "wrong" chute - I had to hop over to the proper one to my right at some point, but while the wrong one was a bit narrower it was also a bit more stable, so that might be a good thing.

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[sekihiker]

Thanks for posting. I really appreciate the great photos and the well done map.

[erutan]

You're welcome - I honestly thought I had posted this and cirque before but I guess I didn't get around to it.

[SSSdave]

Thanks for the photos. That section down the main chute you mention as looking less stable is the reason my route shows moving off south from the direct fall line that was apparently out of your view from where you came up the "wrong" north chute. These two Google Earth images show that area. The bedrock "rib" at the bottom of the chute is between the W and S chutes and results in that pile of "rockfall" being deflected off towards image right. One ought avoid the rockfall as it would be unstable and rather stay in the S area that has vegetation. One would be able to tell they are climbing up the the correct route by crossing the talus fan into the large talus until reaching the talus free vegetation finger. Between the "rockfall" and "large talus" appears to be a bedrock "fall" area that rockfall rolls over before coming to rest.

I'll be interested in seeing some photos long the S route. Also just above P is steeper section of the chute that appears to be bedrock polished by rockfall, I'd be interested in seeing photos of as that may be the crux.

LittleJoe5.jpg

LittleJoe6.jpg

[erutan]

The wider one that was better cairned was never unstable enough to consequential (you'd eat boulders), more that you'd slide down a bit with every step. The talus fields before you hit the chutes along the side were pretty stable iirc. The smaller chute I was in had a lot more vegitation than the main one, but I never felt unsafe in the main one... pretty standard class 2 if a little tedious.

I'll add in a few more photos in between the rest that I had written up for that trip:

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And here's a zoom in of the approach part of my labeled GPS waypoints:

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I was chatting with someone that did it differently this summer, and these are some pics from them:

"there was a lot of confusion and names for the chute we went up. Someone has named it Weyman chute and Leor Pantilat has called the shoulder we topped out on Point reflection [...] I got my info from blogs from Leor Pantilat who called it point reflection and Piero Scaruffi who called it the Weyman chute for his photog friend. It was a fun scramble. Good rock with loose stuff on the bigger ledges"

It seems like solid class 3, if you cut back in early enough you can skip the exposed 4 that people can run into, but it also doesn't seem quite as straightforward with a pack. It might be a better experience as long as you don't stray too far N towards the top...

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[sekihiker]

Thanks for the additional information. More is better.

[bobby49]

Excellent.