mikestuckey

Trip: Mount Baker - Easton Glacier Date: 8/11/2012 Trip Report: This route could hardly be in better shape. Camped at 6,000 feet on the Railroad Grade and began ascent left of the ridge up snowfields to western toe of glacier around 7,000 feet. Then it was pretty much straight at the crater rim with a bit of weaving around larger crevasses that are opening and a lot of stepping over smaller cracks. Snow in perfect shape for crampons. Above crater rim, traversed way west around and over crevasses and then way back east to cross the top of the rocky ridge and get up on summit plateau. Started from camp at 12:15 a.m., to crater rim by 4 a.m. for long rest there, then on true summit by 5:55 a.m. for sunrise. Virtually windless. Two ropes of three and one of two. Few other parties on route, maybe two? This is definitely the time of year to climb Baker. Gear Notes: Standard glacier gear, 30m ropes and pickets. Approach Notes: Clear trail from Schreiber's Meadow to camp spots high on RR Grade. There is also great, dry camping at 7,000 feet where glacier begins.

Fantastic images! The rest of us really benefit from your willingness to carry that gear up there. Stunning! Thanks!

Trip: Mount Shuksan - Sulphide Glacier Date: 7/27/2012 Trip Report: Camped at the rocks at 6,200 feet. Started climbing at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday, July 28. Excellent weather and snow conditions. No sign of crevasses anywhere near the route until the bergschrund just below the summit pyramid and that was easily flanked to the east (climber's right). A bit of mixed rock and very icy snow got us to the gully, melted out and dry. Classic Class 3 with slight rockfall danger. Trended left and exited at final rap station about 100 feet below summit. That put us on a slabby final ridge that was virtually a trail to the top. Windless and brilliantly sunny there. About 4.5 hours from camp to top at leisurely pace, final hour in the gully. About 30 to 45 mins back to the glacier and 2:15 back to camp. Great day. Take your rope to the summit if you have party members who are nervous about down-climbing as rap stations are numerous and easy to access. Gear Notes: Axes, crampons, helmets, 30m rope and pickets. Approach Notes: Trail on Shannon Ridge from about 3,800 feet to the first views of Baker at 4,500 is pretty messy with lots of downed trees and fair amount of snow still. After that, very pleasant hiking on snow and a bit of rock over the notch and around the cirque to camp. Permits to camp in the Sulphide Zone are limited to six parties a night and I have been checked by rangers two of the three times I have been there. Obtain permits and blue bags at Sedro-Woolley ranger station. Forest Roads 1152 and 014 to trailhead are in excellent shape. Nice new toilet and garbage cans and plenty of parking at TH. Northwest Forest Pass required.

Thanks much

Planning to do Colchuck Glacier on Saturday. Wondering if it has melted out too much to do with just single axes and crampons? Thanks!

Thanks much!

Looking for any info (before or after storm) on condition of glacier, new snow in pyramid gully, etc., for bid this weekend. Thanks.

Excellent report, Hawk. We are going to do this soon, especially now that you have hacked it out! Probably go up on a Friday after work, sleep in the meadow and do the rest in the morning. See much bear scat? I forgot to mention that in Glacier report. They are thicker 'n' thieves up #649. Some of it was just about still steaming. Thanks, man!

Cale -- You're welcome. Happy to help. I definitely think it's worth checking with the rangers about any potential consequences (like a fat ticket) of driving past the road closure. Hell, if there are none, do it. We had trouble refraining from self-righteous indignation that we followed the rules and others didn't, but maybe they asked and were told that the signs really mean something more like "travel at your own peril" than "do not enter." Anyway, the trailhead IS posted for trail parking passes. Good luck and lemme know how it goes. We're resting up next weekend after our 16,000-foot week. --mike

Trip: Glacier Peak - Gerdine & Cool Glaciers Date: 7/4/2007 Trip Report: We went in July 4 from where Forest Road 49 is closed at the Lost Creek bridge, about 2.5 miles northwest of the North Sauk trailhead. Although the road is clearly marked with a big sign that says "Closed to All Vehicles," it is possible to drive around. We saw at least one car parked at the TH (likely climbers) when we came out and had two others pass us on the road driving out (likely car-campers). So it might be worth checking with the rangers about what the sign really means. Looks to me they think the bridge is damaged and don't want unnecessary traffic on it; if they do nothing to enforce that, you could save yourself five extra miles of hiking. Anyway, we were to the trail at 9:45 a.m. and heading for White Pass. The trail is a wreck all the way to the Mackinaw shelter, with many deadfalls that have to be traversed. West of the Mackinaw, Sauk has changed its course and some of it is running through what used to be the trail. None of this makes for any route finding challenges, just a lot of extra time to get around this junk, especially with wands and pickets poking above your pack. Beyond the shelter, trail is mostly in good shape. A few gullies above the switchbacks had snow that was rapidly disappearing in the heat of last week. We camped at White Pass our first night, where the snow began to thicken, but still had plenty of dry ground in established camping areas. It took us about 10 hours to go what's probably less than 13 miles, including the road we walked. On July 5, we followed Becky's route over the northeast ridge of White Mountain in the notch at 6,500 feet and found, as we expected, fairly solid snow cover. It was 10 a.m. and the snow was fine for plunging down and high traverses without crampons. We traversed the series of bowls that Beckey describes, dropping first to about 6,100 and climbing back to 6,500, which is about where we stayed until the final climb to Glacier Gap. This took us past the series of small lakes to the north and the foot of the White Chuck Glacier's south lobe. As many other writers have noted, the north lobe of the White Chuck is gone. Checking our route frequently and enjoying what we had planned as a light travel day, we took about eight hours to reach Glacier Gap at 7,200 feet. We had seen no fresh tracks and were not surprised to be all alone with an awesome campsite that looks down into the bowl of the former White Chuck Glacier. On July 6, with the weather already spectacular and only getting better, we decided to take a full rest day. We scouted the route a bit, taking digital photos from the saddle northwest of camp to review the rockfall and seracs on the glaciers. Here are photos from the saddle of most of the route and the rockfall and seracs on the glaciers. Our plan was to ascend the ridge below Disappointment Peak, often called Disappointment Cleaver here and elsewhere, perhaps not the best moniker given its Rainier namesake. About 8,500, we'd cross to the Gerdine Glacier, ascending it to the Cool Glacier, which leads up to the saddle between Disappointment and Glacier Peaks. From the saddle, we had read, it's just a scramble to the summit up a ridge of volcanic sand and rock with snow in the final gully until very late season. If the glaciers looked nasty, we could try just climbing the ridge all the way over Disappointment Peak. That was the plan for Paul and Max from Oregon, who pulled into the Gap late Friday afternoon. While we had read conflicting accounts of the ridge's difficulty, they were counting on it being a walkup. On July 7, we started climbing about 1 a.m. and were quickly on the Disappointment ridge, ascending to about 8,600 before roping up for the glaciers. Far below, we could see a headlamp from Paul or Max as they worked up the ridge. We moved quickly below the rockfall on the Gerdine, spotting no openings in the glacier. At what we thought was the junction between the Gerdine and the Cool, we headed sharply west, rising quickly to more than 40 degrees on a very slick surface. That made me too nervous and I told Kelly I needed to bail. Ever the accommodating partner, she encouraged me to back off at my own speed. I was thinking we'd try the ridge, but when we got back down to flatter ice, we spotted a route through the seracs that separate the Gerdine from the Cool. It's not really an icefall as much as an ice crash, where the edge of the Cool runs into a rocky point. Threading quickly through the seracs, we ascended the Cool, crossing a few cracks that were just beginning to open. Here's the final ridge from near the top of the Cool. We hit the saddle at 9,600 feet about 5:20 a.m. and unroped. We climbed the ridge and were at 10,000 and the final snow gully about 6 a.m. We took a bit of a break, put our crampons back on and ascended the icy snow, which someone had kindly kicked some good steps into recently, and stood on the summit at 6:50 a.m. We snapped photos with a backdrop of Mount Baker, which we had summited July 1. On the way down, we met Paul and Max at the start of the gully. They said the ridge was certainly Class IV, and tougher with snow. Back at the start of the Gerdine, we met a skier and a snowboarder traveling unroped, thinking about going all the way to the top. Unsure if they summited, but they skied and rode past our camp a few hours later. We arrived back at camp about 10:45 a.m., rested and packed slowly before leaving at 2 p.m. to head back to White Pass, where we camped for the night. Finished our hike out July 8 about 1 p.m. Here's Kelly at the summit: Gear Notes: Axes, crampons, helmets, 30m glacier rope, two 18-inch pickets, minimal hardware for crevasse rescue Approach Notes: Allow more time than you think for the messy trail.

Has anyone been in there in past week or so on any of the routes? We are considering trying to go from North Sauk TH via Disappointment Peak/Gerdine Ridge. Any news on conditions in there would be more appreciated. Thanks.

Online versions, done at a free blog site, have many advantages. You have access wherever you have access to the Web. You can share with others or not. You can put in photos, they are easily searchable, etc.

I've heard and read in a number of places online that it's a non-starter unless you want to spend a ton of time. Next week, we are going to try Glacier via North Sauk TH to White Pass and over Disappointment Peak.

Very helpful. Thanks so much!

After lots of experience with many "state-of-the-art" tents, starting with '70s North Face models, I am currently absolutely sold on the REI Quarter Dome for summer use in the Cascades. It is under 4 lbs. Although small, it has two doors and two little alcoves. The poles go into serious sleeves and the fly clips and velcroes on and has guy points which can then make the whole tent bulletproof in some pretty serious winds. Despite extensive reliance on netting to cut weight, the tightness of the fly leads to some condensation problems in heavy rain, but it's manageable. We were fine in 24 straight hours of rain recently. It was seam-sealed and ready to go right out of the box. Around $200, as I recall.

There's little reason to wear plastic in the Cascades short of full-on technical ice-climbing or trips where you'll be on a glacier for more than 24 hours. I don't know much about the former, but the only place I'd wear plastic myself (I have Koflach Degre's) is on Rainier. And even there, if I was going on one of the standard two-day routes, I'd probably wear my leather mountaineering boots. Today's flexible crampons will stay on practically anything to tromp up glaciers short of front-pointing, so your only issue is cold. One thing you can do is take a lot of care to stay off the ice when you are around camp and not moving. Sit on your pad with your feet on it too. If you carry a closed-cell pad, as opposed to something that inflates too, like Thermarest, you can just stand on it when you are cooking and eating. Stand on your snowshoes if you have them, etc. My current leather boots are Raichles, for which I love the fit. I was able to hike long distances in them almost immediately after I bought them, as opposed to the La Sportiva Makalus that I could NEVER really break in. But the Raichle uppers are no well made. This is their second real season and the first was not very heavy, but the stitching has come out on some parts of the sides and I am already fixing them with Shoe Goo. But they are super comfy and, so far, weather tight despite the problem. I was in snow for many miles last weekend and did a number of stream crossings that saw water well above my ankles and no leaks. Good luck.

Pasayten area from the Monument Creek TH would be very quiet. In fact, the trail is so poorly maintained beyond Eureka Creek, it discourages all but those trying to bag Monument Peak and Lake Mountain. We were in there June 8-10. No one else around. You could have a very nice base camp atop Pistol Pass and climb the two aforementioned plus the Pistols and several others. The trail was snow-free to the pass, but the basin north of it where Lake of the Woods lies will probably still have a foot or more in most places. Take plenty of water from the last stream that crosses the trail or be prepared to melt snow. The climbs out of Leroy Basin (Fernow, 7FJ and Maude) will have plenty of folks from here on out, but you can likely find quiet places to camp by yourself. If you head for the SW ridge on Maude, you can camp over in the Ice Lakes basin on some melted-out islands and have your pick of a bunch more nice summits, finishing with Fernow and 7FJ on the way back out thru Leroy. Although only 25 miles, the drive to the TH off Chiwawa River Road is at least an hour from the resort area at Lake Wenatchee. Have fun!

Anybody get up in last few days from Schreiber's? Is the road open all the way to the parking lot? State of trail to the moraine? Snow bridge/crevasse sitchy once on the glacier? Looks liek weather might be decent Sunday and thinking of heading up Saturday afternoon to bivy on glacier and finish early Sunday. Thanks!

Great post. You passed us (the "elderly couple") on your way down the south side before you turned right. We spent 11 hours going from Leroy Basin up the southwest ridge and back to camp, which was a cakewalk compared with what you did in about the same amount of time ... the north face and 10 additional miles on the trail. Way to go!