EISPIRATEN

It didn't take too much more research to learn that Iron Mountain has a name that suits it perfectly: it is one serious bastard of a hill...
...to get to Iron Mountain one must begin at Heaton Flat, elevation 2000 feet. Including unavoidable ups and downs, summiting Iron via the Heaton Flat Trail entails a hefty 7200 combined total vertical feet of climbing—one-way. To further complicate the effort, Heaton Flat Trail only goes up to 4800'.

The rest of the way involves finding unmaintained use trails that claw their way through thickets of brush. And if that's not enough to get you cackling like a madman, Iron's entire south face can be expected to be utterly bare of snow even in the dead of winter, meaning you'll be carrying skis, boots, and overnight gear (and water—there is no water on the route!) on your back all the way up to the summit.

Should you survive that ordeal with some small measure of stamina and sanity left, you've still only reached the top of a ski route that may or may not exist. And if the couloir isn't skiable—or otherwise accessible—well, at least you'll have a heck of a story to tell if and when you finally finish carrying yourself and your skis all the way back down the hill.

If the line does go, remember that however far down the north side you ski you'll need to climb back up. There is no north exit. Once you re-summit, you must then redo the entire south ridge route in reverse—daunting, to say the least.

TacoDelRio wrote:They nabbed it before I was able to climb it. Then again... maybe nobody has climbed it yet.

The climb back out of the couloir wasn't bad, to be honest—though perhaps I was fueled by more than a little adrenaline from having just skied it.