[TR] Silver Star- Burgundy Col/north glacier 5/24/2004

[meganerd]

Climb: Silver Star-Burgundy Col/north glacier

 

Date of Climb: 5/24/2004

 

Trip Report:

Ok, when I was in Marblemount and it was getting somewhat cloudy, I really should have looked at the sky for 30 seconds to see that the clouds were coming from the east... When I got to Washington Pass, there was a big dark cloud hovering over Liberty Bell and and Silver Star. I went anyway and did get a few sunbreaks, but generally crappy. The route is in good condition mostly snowfree until it flattens out below the gully to Burgundy Col. There are a few snowpatches in the Early Winters Creek valley bottom which make following the barely visible tread more difficult. Where the path meets the creek, look to your right and see a good crossing log. Below the Burgundy Col gully, there was about 3 or 4 inches of fresh snow over a fairly solid base. At this point the weather had also turned again and I was being snowed upon and I saw a small slide come out of a gully to the south, so I turned around cuz I was by myself. Of some note, the gully appears to have melted out until the fresh snow buried it again. Went and hiked Sourdough Mountain above Diablo instead. That was snowfree almost to the Sourdough Creek crossing.

 

Gear Notes:

just ice axe

 

Approach Notes:

that's all I did so see above.

[Norman_Clyde]

I hiked Sourdough yesterday. Got almost to the top, but turned around after my boots started repeatedly filling with snow. Less rain than expected. Caught a few views across the valley.

[layton]

how much snow, or how wet or the N,W,and E faces of the wine spires/silver star when you were up there?

I'd really really really like to know!

Thank you,

MikeL

[meganerd]

Just below the coloir up to Burgundy Col, there was about three inches of fresh over hardpack and getting deeper. The wine spires were all coated with a light dusting of snow. In the conditions that I saw, technical rock climbing would probably be pretty annoying although I didn't really get all that close to the rock. Since it was snowing on me at about 6500, I would assume that the faces weren't wet although a quick bit of direct sunshine could easily change that. I don't know how helpful this will be since that was last Monday and the weather has been quite unstable since.