Primomo.Blogspot: Chiefs Head: The Royal Ramp Couloir

I spied this line a while back, and hadn’t given too much thought into the details. Thursday night I found myself searching for pictures of the right angle, with a little snow. I found one or two that led me to believe it would go through, likely with a little ice step to get onto the ramp.
All week the temps had be warm up high, a stable atmosphere, and mostly stable snowpack. It was on. The search for partners proved useless. Found out from Jason Mauwer that Phd (Miller) may have ridden the line. The closest I came was getting some interest was from Kroiss. “That looks like a really cool line”, he exclaimed after checking out the shots. “But, I think I’m going to have to decline cuz I have some work to do, and besides, NOAA is forecasting for 70mph gusts and a little snow. Definitley another time though.”
I remember thinking, “he made the right decision”, as I tucked behind a house sized boulder, attempting to hide from the wind on a flat alpine expanse. The wind almost blew me over while I tried to take a leak, and I was on the leeward side. Snow from the sky blended with snow blowing on the ground, it was an official white out.
I switched my caked shades for goggles, put the puffy on, covered the nose, and continued on. I just had to get a look at this thing. I had to find out what that peculiar looking sliver was. Was it 100ft. of WI4 on granite slab? Or was it a nice, hidden ramp?
Deep in the cirque, switching skins for crampons, it started to break up. What the? Is that the sun? Amazing! I was pretty sure this squall wasn’t a squall, it was a full fledged storm that was supposed to go through the night. Lucky me, much more fresh and I would’ve had to retreat. I love visibility too.
My heart pounded with anticipation as I neared the crux. I think it… looks like…yup, it’s a ramp! Stoked, I left the rope, hardness, protection, and other deadweight hanging from a crack in the fine granite. Then a cliffshot was all I needed to cruise to the top and hit the ridge.
I took a moment to check out the snowpack on the hanging snowfield on the traverse up. It hung over a 200ft. cliff. Rough shears, great structure. Snow surface was mostly 3-6” of large crystals. The old surface ranged from firm, carvable windpack to soft NSF. The steepest angle was 50, right below the ramp. The ramp was 45, and the couloir was 35 at lower section to upper 40’s in upper section.
Stoked, I even ran to the summit and back. The riding was excellent, more consistent that I expected, even got handfuls of faceshots. I made it down the ramp and its narrow rocky ledge section with the board on, one foot out. The cloud deck didn’t lower rapidly like I thought it would. Don’t know how or why, it just didn’t. Made it back down the nice frozen slick trail to the TH before dark too.

Coming out of the squall, and into the view of the wall.