Sloan Peak - Corkscrew 8/23/2008
Trip: Sloan Peak - Corkscrew
Date: 8/23/2008
Trip Report:We walked the ~4 miles to the trail head from where the road slumps after spending a bit too much time trying to dig out our stuck truck. The crossing of the NF Sauk is easy on logs for 2 of 3 crossings, we never took off our boots. Once across the last log jam head S on the gravel bar 50 feet and look for the flags to head into the woods. The trail is well flagged but with plenty of down wood and overhanging veg. The basin at 4600 ft has at least one good tent site and we found several others at 4800-5000 ft on or near the climbers trail (above and East of the early season snow-chute). The glacier is still in good shape as we angled up across it until the run-out below got ugly. At that point we switchbacked up 100 vert feet and walked on the edge of a fairly sizeable crevasse. From there it was easy going to the "take out" at the far side (no moat). There was some new snow ontop of the old glacial firn, which made the crampons ball up just a bit. We still found crampons to be a useful addition to the climb, something I wouldn't always advocate. The rest of the corkscrew is quite easy to follow. Beautiful day with great clarity, we could see from Mt. Adams to Canada and the Olympics were even especially clear.
Pictures:
http://picasaweb.google.com/jverschuyl/SloanPeakGear Notes:crampons
iceaxe
8.8 mil 50m rope
Approach Notes:brushy
easy creek crossings
few bugs compared to what I expected
