The two Storm Peaks near Silverton, Storm Peak A and "East Storm", area among the harder thirteeners of the area. Situated northeast of town they separate several basins including Velocity Basin to the north, with part of Silverton Mountain Resort, and Boulder Gulch to the south, which can be walked to from Silverton. Velocity Basin is the more interesting of the two, and gets its name from a 1982 speed skiing championship held there. It also contains a number of interesting north couloirs that held my and Heather's interests. When I attempted "East Storm" last year I turned around a few hundred feet from the summit. The east ridge isn't technically difficult but it's extremely steep and during last year's drought the upper slopes were so dry they would just crumble and slide under my feet. Microspikes or crampons would have worked on the dirt and scree, but I didn't bring them because it was late August, and then the snow came and that was it for the season. They don't combine well together - "East Storm"'s west face is a vertical wall of crumbling rock, Storm's east ridge is barely any better, and their south sides, the most logical way to connect them, contain doable scrambling that's nonetheless rotten, steep, and seems unpleasant at best.

With a bunch of good snow climbs under my belt already this year I wanted to put these two peaks to rest via snow climbs of their own. Prior to heading to Silverton on this trip I was enamored with the idea of climbing "East Storm"'s incredible north face as boggyb had in his trip report. I still hadn't really worked out a way to get Storm from there, and would have been content just doing "East Storm", but two peaks is better than one. Mathematically twice as good, in fact. If "East Storm"'s wild north face had a good climb, perhaps Storm's did as well. As it turns out, there are several, as SummitPost describes. But how do you connect two north facing couloirs on two separate peaks on one trip? Who cares! We'd figure it out as we went.

The two days prior to this climb we'd climbed Potosi Peak's north couloir and Snowdon Peak and "South Snowdon" via Snowdon's Naked Lady couloir. With warm weather arriving we weren't sure if we'd get the Storms or whether the snow would be too crappy to climb. We scoped out our intended route the evening before - up Storm's Gnar couloir, down the south gully (which we couldn't see - was it already melted out?) to the Grande couloir, which was also north facing, and then traverse over to "East Storm"'s northeast couloir. We couldn't tell if the latter actually went to the summit, but we also couldn't tell whether boggyb's line was already melted out at the top and wouldn't be good thus we chose a more reliable option. So in reality we'd be getting four couloirs, three of them north facing, one south facing, on two peaks all in a single day. Talk about having our work cut out for us!

We left our vehicles just before 4:45am and headed up the road to the lake below the peaks. The snow began right at the parking area and was good and firm. I had been concerned it was going to be mush. The snow the day before on the Snowdons was terrible on our deproach and neither of us were sure it was going to freeze overnight, but we had apparently gotten lucky. We booted up the road and Heather experienced some minor postholing between the upper parking area and the bottom of the apron on the Gnar couloir's approach snow ramp, but otherwise the snow was in good shape.

We put on crampons and got our axe and ice tool out and I took the lead up the apron. The snow at the bottom was a mess of frozen wet avalanche debris but we quickly passed through it into smoother snow.

The approach climb was short and led to a relatively low angle bench, and from there we traversed to the left over increasing exposure to the bottom of the Gnar itself.

The night before we had seen a snow feature that split the approach climb from the Gnar - a fan of snow we called the Snow Cone. From a distance we couldn't tell if we could get around it or if it would turn it to be vertical snow, a hidden cliff, or what. As I got closer it became clear that it was easy to get around and merely looked unusual from a distance.

We finished our traverse into the Gnar, took a few pictures, and admired the sunrise.

It was 800 to 1,000 feet of snow to the summit and there was a giant cliff at the bottom to add to the exhilaration. We began up.

Snow in the couloir was locked in the 40 degree range, and perfect in consistency. We French stepped our way up the couloir, incrementally increasing our exposure above Velocity Basin.

The angle drifted upwards slowly, gaining only a few degrees over the course of the climb, but enough where step kicking was required at the top.

We enjoyed the simplicity of the climb, and the shared solitude, oxymoron though it may be. There were others in the basin - our friends Rick and Troy were climbing nearby Tower Mountain and Macomber Peak - but the Storms were ours to weather, just the two of us. I always feel immense gratitude when a good snow climb comes together, and this was one of those moments.

At the very top of the couloir we encountered a set of frozen switchbacks left by previous climbers. We used them to our advantage and topped out on a small saddle.

From the small saddle we were on the summit was only a couple hundred feet away. We crossed over the top of a rib and hit Class 3 scrambling that blocked easy access to the high point. The rock was both smooth and somewhat loose, which made scrambling in mountaineering boots difficult. Exposure to the north was intense, as the entire face all the way to Velocity Basin was just a few feet away.

We opted for an alternate way up that would only be viable on snow. We dropped a couple body lengths north down a thin, snowy gully next to the scramble and traversed underneath all of the rock. A few exposed, awkward Class 3 moves around a slightly bulging ledge led to more Steep Snow, the steepest of the day thus far. After maybe 50 feet of it we were on Storm's summit.

Since we still had to down climb the entirety of Storm back to Velocity Basin, all on snow, and then climb and down climb the entirety of "East Storm", all on snow, we didn't dilly dally very long. We quickly reversed our route down the Steep Snow and across the ledge, back to the summit ridge, and then back to the top of Gnar.

To the south from the saddle ran the south gully, a route some people use to ascend the peak from Boulder Gulch. We were glad it was still full of snow, as it would undoubtedly be a loose mess of scree otherwise.

Overall the south gully was simple Moderate Snow. It would make a rather plain and short climb, and definitely wouldn't be as high quality as Gnar was, but would be easier for those who aren't up to the steeper stuff. The bottom was a little melted out and from there we had a decent traverse to get to the top of the Grande, once again fortunately on snow.

We quickly walked down the upper part of the Grande and glissaded the bottom before returning to our snowshoe cache underneath Storm.

We grabbed our snowshoes and began another long, ascending traverse towards "East Storm"'s north face. We checked out boggy's north couloir along the way and while it looked enticing we were unsure enough about the topout that we decided to continue to the northeast couloir instead, which we knew was in.

"East Storm"'s northeast couloir steepened as we approached it, this time with snowshoes on our backs. We didn't bother dropping them this time and started chugging up the couloir. As we climbed higher Storm reared up while the unnamed lake in the basin dropped away.

"East Storm"'s northeast couloir is straight forward and is less steep than the Gnar but similar to the Grande - Moderate Snow.

Near the top the couloir is capped by a large tower, and it forks. Both forks would have been fine but the right-hand fork got us just a little closer, without having to traverse the south side of the tower.

We took the right branch at the bottom of the tower and once again topped out on a small saddle separating north and south faces.

From the saddle we could see a large part of the remaining route. We'd have to traverse farther west on a mix of snow and dry ground before reaching solid snow on the upper south face that would continue to the summit. I began across the snow and up a steep, short Class 2+ section of loose scree through a cliff band. The dry ground continued past the cliff band for a short distance before the snow began.

"East Storm"'s south face was very straightforward and somewhere in the Moderate Snow range, and after a few hundred feet of climbing straight up we hit the short summit ridge, where we traversed to the summit.

It was approaching mid-day and we wanted to get off the snow before it became dangerously soft, so after about ten minutes on the summit we began down. We were careful on the south face, which was indeed softer than just a few minutes prior, then made quick work of booting and glissading the northeast couloir.

Once back at the lake it was an easy walk back down the road to our vehicles. Rick and Troy had already finished so we went into Silverton for lunch. Given how crummy the rock is on these two peaks Heather and I were both glad to have excellent, exciting snow to climb up and down both. Either of these lines would be great by themselves, but putting them together was an amazing and fun time. If there's a Storm or two on your radar and you want to satisfy your storm chaser dreams then give these lines a shot, for there's no dark clouds to be found on this pair.

Statistics

Climbers: Ben Feinstein (myself), Heather R.
Trailhead: Velocity Basin

Total distance: 6.58 miles
Total elevation gain: 4,455 feet
Total time: 6:22:56
Peaks: Two ranked thirteeners

• Storm Peak A, 13,487'
• "East Storm", 13,325'

Splits: