Fred, Pedro, Eric and I tackled the North Couloir of Mount Gilbert in October 1999 as part of our training for Aconcagua. Mount Gilbert is located near South Lake and is the neighbor of Mount Thompson, which bears some nice ice gullies which Fred and Eric had climbed a few weeks before. Mount Gilbert's North Couloir is an impressive line going up for 1500' at a pitch exceeding 60 degrees. When we climbed it, the couloir was all water ice, really hard and very brittle. Our progression was therefore pretty slow, and Fred and I decided to rappel down in the middle of the afternoon. Pedro and Eric, who were a bit higher, decided to keep going for the summit. The last steep section was made of really hard ice and gave us some trouble so we climbed the last 100' on the side rocks. From the notch at the top of the gully, some Class 3 climbing leads to the summit. They reached the summit at nightfall and barely managed to find our way down before dark. Two rappels in  pitch-black dark led them to the bottom of the buttress and they had to hike out during the night. They reached the car after 19 hours of climbing, while Fred and I were not expecting them any more, convinced they'd had to spend the night outside.

    On the glacier at the bottom of Mount Gilbert 

    The North Couloir of Mount Gilbert behind Eric, Fred and Pedro

 
    Climbing in the North Couloir - the top section can clearly be seen with water ice