KaskadskyjKozak Posted June 2, 2009 Share Posted June 2, 2009 Trip: Logan - Douglas Glacier Date: 5/23/2009 Trip Report: Every year I get in better shape for climbing season than the previous, and as the snows melt, and I venture out into the mountains, I get a little cocky. Invariably, every year the mountains kick my ass at least once. This year, Logan taught me that lesson. I have had my eye on Logan for a couple years now, in particular the Douglas Glacier route. I found TRs on cc.com and elsewhere which made this route sound like the easiest way up Logan, especially early season. This year I decided to give it a go with a few friends over Memorial Day weekend. Unfortunately we never set foot on the glacier because of an infected hand injury for one of our party members, so this TR is more of a conditions report. Here goes... The hike from the parking lot to Easy Pass was almost 100% snow covered. I expected this to take 2-3 hours. It took us 3.5. The going was tough, especially in the heat up the final 1500 feet to the pass. We brought and used flotation. View of the objective from Easy Pass. It looks so far away... From the pass to Fischer Creek we again had mostly snow. There was some postholing up to our balls for the first few hundred vertical feet headed down the pass. The basin was snow covered. We used flotation for all but the steep parts. Slog, slog, slog: The forest was also mostly snow-covered, but not deep. We spent a lot of time trying to contour and avoid losing more elevation. In the end this was an exercise in futility. The off-trail forest hiking was energy-sucking and hard, and in the end we dropped to 3900 foot elevation - almost back to where we started at the easy pass trail head. Give up! Go down! At this point my ambitions to go to the pickets evaporated. If this hike sucks so bad, what would a pickets approach be like? We got to camp in the lower basin at elevation 4500 feet after 9 hours of slogging. The last 500 feet of elevation gain felt to me like the last 500 feet up Rainier. We had hoped to get to at least 5000, ideally 6000 feet. It was not going to happen that day. At least our camp had running water. Are we there yet? 500 more feet to go: We arose at 3 am to head up, but decided to turn around due to our freind's injury. This gave us another 3.5 hours of sleep. The hike out - all 11 miles of it, were not much easier than the hike in. We gained about the same amount of elevation and it took 8.5 hours. We ran into a friend at Easy Pass who basically said we looked like beaten men. I'll get you next year, Logan! (I think) Gear Notes: Flotation required Approach Notes: Life-sucking Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zloi Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 What do you mean by "floatation"? Inner tubes, life ring?? You don't even mention the avalanche section or the brush. Could the snow still have been that deep? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AJScott Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 We followed your tracks the same weekend and had a different story for sure, thanks for the tracks to follow. wonder how we didnt cross paths? maybe skis helped us out... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted June 3, 2009 Author Share Posted June 3, 2009 We followed your tracks the same weekend and had a different story for sure, thanks for the tracks to follow. wonder how we didnt cross paths? maybe skis helped us out... We saw some fresh ski tracks on the way out but never saw those who made them - perhaps it was you. Two skiers also greeted us near the Fischer basin on Sunday midday. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KaskadskyjKozak Posted June 3, 2009 Author Share Posted June 3, 2009 What do you mean by "floatation"? Inner tubes, life ring?? snow shoes next year I will have skis. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stefan Posted June 3, 2009 Share Posted June 3, 2009 It's okay to get spanked. Happens to all of us! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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