Wllperegoy

Trip: Glacier Peak - N/A Date: 5/24/2015 Trip Report: After months of dreaming of Glacier Peak, I finally got to take a shot at it with my friends Robin and Everritt Friday: We got to the North Fork Sauk trail-head around 7:30PM on Friday night. We had decided to hike to the Mackinaw Shelter that night to take some of the mileage off for our hike on Saturday. After about 45 minutes of messing with gear and finding the food we thought we had forgotten, we hit the trail. We kept a good pace and ended up finishing the hike in the dark. We actually didn't make it to the shelter but rather to a camp right before the wooden bridge river crossing. We saw camp spots and assumed we were in the right place so we set up camp and slept for the night. Saturday: We got up around 9:30-10ish on Saturday. After about half an hour we had camp broken down and were ready to hit the trail. Before we left we realized we hadn't actually made it to the Mackinaw Shelter and figured we had about a mile and a half to go. We began our hike and ended up reaching the Mackinaw Shelter a little while later. After the shelter we began the hike up the switchbacks and reached the intersection with the PCT about an hour and 45 minutes later. At this point there were several snow covered sections of trail, so we decided to put on mountaineering boots and bring out our ice axes. After we got off the PCT and under White Mountain, we found ourselves on a large snowfield but luckily with a good boot-path to follow. We traversed under White Mountain and made our way up to a ridge a little ways away from White Mountain. It was here where we found ourselves in the fog with about 5 more miles to go and around 2,000 feet of elevation left till base camp. Due to our inexperience with route-finding in the fog, we decided to turn around and head back. As we left and headed back down to the Mackinaw Shelter we saw about 5 parties that were headed to Glacier Peak, we decided not to follow them and instead come back another time. We got to the Mackinaw Shelter later that night and hiked out the next morning. Not the most exciting trip report but I figured I'd post some information on the conditions up there since I myself couldn't find much recent information before heading out on Friday. Thanks for reading. Gear Notes: Brought 2 snow pickets, ice axes, crampons, mountaineering boots, rope Approach Notes: No snow until near the intersection with the PCT. After that it looked like it was completely snow-covered to base camp so there isn't really any trail to follow at this point, however there should be a decent boot-path now due to the other parties that followed us.

Hi there! So a few of my friends and I are wanting to try and summit Glacier Peak over memorial day weekend. But I am curious as to if this is even possible in the early season? I haven't been able to find any recent trip reports that could give me any decent information. So is Glacier Peak even a possible climb in May for those who don't have skis? If so, are there any good route recommendations? I know that there has been road closures for a while now but haven't been able to find any solid answer as to if the roads are now open or any alternatives that will still get us to the peak. If this would be impossible to do, are there any other good early season climbs in the north cascades that aren't insanely technical? A scramble is fine with us but we aren't prepared to do an Alpine climb or anything, we're basically limited to a scramble or glacier slog right now. Thanks!

So a week ago I bought a gri gri for a trip down to Smith. I was getting it because I figured it'd help with catching lead falls better because I'm still a bit new to that. I also got it because I figured it'd be nice when belaying someone on top rope on a hard route. So the trip is over now and I have some mixed feelings about the device. It was awesome for belaying people on top rope routes on places where they would be stuck and would be hanging a lot. But when it came to lead belaying it was a pain in the ass honestly, paying out slack was definitely do-able but it was more of a hassle than I liked. I actually switched to my atc for one lead belay and it was a lot better for that. I also found that lowering with it was honestly trickier than my atc. I felt like I was almost unsafe when lowering with it. So what would you guys suggest? I feel like I've just bought a fun toy that I don't really need. I've heard there's some other cool uses for it but I'm not sure that outweighs the money I could get back from returning it that I could use towards a rope and draws. But if it really is a device that has some awesome uses then I would definitely keep it.

Is there a place to park where it turns from Icicle Creek to the Eighmile road? Or will we basically have to walk all of Icicle Creek and Eightmile to reach the lake stuart trailhead. Thanks!

I was planning on doing a snow camping trip to see if people in the group can handle it. And I think we would be renting snowshoes, is Aasgard pass basically a snowfield in the winter?

Hi there, Sometime next month or maybe in march I am hoping to do a backpacking trip into the Enchantments and I had a couple questions 1. Do you need a permit? I know you need one between June 15-Oct 15 but I'm unsure if you need any sort of permit for the winter and haven't found any info online. And is it even possible to get into the enchantments in the winter? 2. Is Aasgard pass pretty technical in the winter? The group I would be going with does not have any experience with mountaineering or really anything besides just general backpacking. If Aasgard is too technical would the snow lakes approach still be doable in the winter? 3. How feasible is it to do the Enchantments in the winter with a group of people who have only backpacking experience? 4. Any other advice?