[TR] Mt. Buckner - North Face 6/21/2017

[tvClimber]

Quick update on conditions for folks planning this weekend. There is about 2 mile hike to the Boston basin trail head due to large snow pile at the very last turn at cascade pass trail head. Wish NPS would just put a temp gate up but just be prepared to hike more. Lots of snow everywhere! Easy travel up the Quien Sabe, across the Boston Glacier, Horse Basin and almost snow completely all the way from Sahale Camp to Cascade trail head. We were able to still go down the valley and not take the endless switch backs. We traverse on some firm snow to get below water falls, but with warmer conditions this weekend that might not be an issue at all.

 

Sharkfin Col beta - the actually Col looked like an easy scramble without the 5.7 climb moves which are still covered in snow but likely will need to do a double 60 meter rap to reach the other side. We went over the alternative col which is full of snow on the Quien Sabe side. The Boston Glacier side is moating out, but we were able to rap onto the top part and head skiers left where we put in a picket and rapped another 60 meters over the bigger part of the moat and onto the Boston Glacier. From the ground we saw that a group of skiers rap off of a block from the skiers right side so there are two options now to get to the Boston Glacier with only one 60 meter rope. I am guess this will stay true for a few weeks.

 

Crossing the Boston was very easy because temps and large snow pack this year. We climb up to about 7400 feet and basically walked straight across at that level to the base of Buckner from there we kicked in snow steps running a belay using our three remaining pickets all the way to the top. It's really straight forward and should be easy now with all our footsteps. The last 150 feet was nerve ice so having two tools was really nice and I bet it will stay that way for a little while.

Edited June 23, 2017 by tvClimber

[ivan]

put it into a plaintext converter

 

here's one: https://jhy.io/tools/convert-word-to-plain-text

[tvClimber]

Thanks Ivan

[JonParker]

Thanks for the conditions update.

If anyone else is thinking of doing this climb in the next couple weeks and looking for a partner, let me know. I'm hoping to go from cascade pass and tag Sahale on the way. Weekdays and fast pace preferred.