Eldorado East Ridge TR

[goatboy]

Climbed Eldorado (standard route) for the first time over Saturday/Sunday and really enjoyed the views and the conditions.

 

Seeing Forbidden Peak from that side, perched above Moraine Lake, is breathtaking, and inspired me to go take a whack at the North Ridge (or have it whack at me?) someday.

 

It was quite warm on the hump up the hill on Saturday, with lots of sun, especially on the talus field section (about 1000 feet of slow-going on hot rocks).

 

We chose to rope up crossing the Eldorado Glacier, though the snowbridges were all bomber and conditions good.

 

We rolled in to the high camp on the rocks at the base of the east ridge, very nice bivy sites there with a running water supply. One other party rolled in around dark, intending to check out the NE Face the next day.

 

We got started at 7 AM and found great crampon conditions all the way to the summit. The snow arete was beautiful, though not as steep on either side as I expected. We summitted at 8:20 or so. One solo climber came up as we were descending, and we could hear the party of two over on the NE Face, though we had left before they arrived.

 

Descent was long, as it entailed 6600 feet of descent before driving 6 hours back to Portland. But we were home by 10:30.

 

A few notes :

 

We saw a black bandanna and a pile of poop on the Eldorado Glacier. What a grim scene. The Park Service issues blue bags to protect that alpine environment, too bad some folks don't care. Seeing that was the low point of my trip.

 

Icefall

We saw hundreds of pounds of ice blocks which fell right over our boot tracks from the previous day as you access the Eldorado Glacier (on the rock slabs after dropping into Roush Creek). The soloist was coming down to that same section Sunday when the icefall above calved off again, sending more blocks down. He was fine, but hurried through that section (appropriately). This was around noon -- beware the unstable snout of the glacier!

 

Is it worth the slog???

All in all, a great trip, perfect weather, great partners. I highly recommend Eldorado for those of you who wonder if a fairly non-technical "walk-up" is worth the strenuous approach.

 

See attachment for image.

 

Edited September 29, 2003 by goatboy