[TR] Dome Peak - Dome Glacier / NE Ridge 7/26/2017

[Jaime]

Trip: Dome Peak - Dome Glacier / NE Ridge

 

Date: 7/26/2017

 

Trip Report:

Jason and I climbed Dome Peak via the NE Ridge on our way through the Ptarmigan Traverse

 

GPS Tracks from camp at White Rock Lakes to camp at Itswoot Ridge: https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/track/2b3afe8d8465a790700149239e86b1d1/?layer=CalTopo

 

From camp at White Rock Lakes, we traversed across to Dana Glacier, following a fairly obvious trail. Jason and I wanted to climb Dome so we chose to attempt a shortcut to it by crossing the Dana glacier to the Dana-Dome col, rather than crossing through Spire and traversing back to the Dome Glacier. This worked great, with just a short step of 3rd class climbing to get over the Dana-Dome col to the Dome glacier.

 

From here we hiked up to the glacier, and decided to rope up. Crossing the glacier, we had to leap over a few crevasses, but they were so small that this was more fun than worrisome. We aimed for the rock col to the north of Dome (at ~8500') and found a rough path that led up the short section of loose rock and dirt to cross to the Chickamin Glacier. (For anyone wondering, there was a great bivy site here.)

 

After a short ascent up a steepish snow slope, we found ourselves at the base of the NE Ridge. We did a bit of scrambling up the rock and dirt until we got to a more exposed section of ridge with snow on the south side. The snow was pulling away from the ridge, forming a comfortable, protected-feeling moat that we traveled in for a little ways. We'd heard the climbing got fairly exposed, and we still had the rope and tiny rack with us, so once the snow started to run out we decided to set a picket anchor and belay the remaining section to the summit (~45m). Jason led out and managed to place our entire rack of 3 pieces (one cam and two nuts), then he tied off the rope and I just used it as a handline. As advertised the climbing was fairly easy but quite exposed.

 

We hung out on the summit a bit, then reversed our tracks and downclimbed back to the snow. The snow conditions were great so crossing the glacier on the way down was extra fun - we did it at a full jog, leaping over the tiny crevasses without breaking stride.

 

Round trip time from the Dana-Dome col was ~3.5hrs. Rough timeline:

• Dana-Dome col: 1:30pm
  
• Dome-Chickamin col: 3pm
  
• Summit: 3:45pm
  
• Dana-Dome col: 5pm
   
  

 

 

Gear Notes:

.75 link cam

2 medium-sized nuts

1 cordalette

2 slings