Keller: The Western Kelloir

The south side of the ridge leading to Keller has many couloirs. I guess we can call them Kelloirs. On May 26, 2007, Bob Portmann, Bob Salazar, and I climbed to one of the prominent bumps on the ridge (12847') and skied a broad face that was in perfect condition. The approach was quite easy via the trail that leaves the Gore Trail about a mile N of the Gore Trail/Rock Creek Trail junction. Some people call this the "Super Trail". We could put our skins on just below treeling and ski all the way to the top of the descent route. As noted, there are several possible lines. To get back we traversed the south slopes of the peak, always staying left in order to hit the road end at the Boss Mine. There was a little trail that we could follow for about half of this.

The photo below was taken by Charlie Ziskin during a trip he and Christian Caslin made to to Rain Peak a week before our tour of Keller. It shows the south side of Keller well. The true summit of Keller is way over to the left; very white. There are two main subsummits on the ridge, the easternmost of which (12847) is right above the head of the skier. We skied the broad face just west of this point. We looked down the couloir that is immediately west of this point, but could not tell how well it would work, and the broad face looked really, really good. In hindsight, we probably should have taken the line coming down to the SE right off this summit. Again, we could not see it all from the top.

On June 2, 2007, Matt Miller, Rick Miller, Mike Ross, and John Jaycox skied a steeper line that we did: the narrower couloir that is just above the right side of the boulder in the photo below. They found good conditions; D7 seems a reasonable rating as it has a short 45-degree section.

Here is Bob Portmann dropping into the Kelloir.

And a view from Valhalla on June 22, 2011. The line we skied is lookers left of the rightmost bump on the ridge.