Buckner/Booker Col Route

[bobinc]

Has anyone taken the route from Park Creek Pass up and over to Horseshoe Basin? It looks like a steep snow gully from Buckner Glacier, but I haven't gotten very close to get a better look. Also, how feasible is it to link up from upper HBasin over to Sahale Arm? A route is described in one of the CAGs but wonder if anyone has done it.

[W]

I've haven't done the Booker/Buckner col thing.

But to get from Horseshoe Basin to Sahale Arm: stay high in the basin, aiming for a short buttress arm coming down from high on Sahale Peak. In early season if it is really snowed up, it would probably be possible to skirt the base of this buttress and climb the broad depression behind it, up steep ground, and right onto Sahale Arm. Most of the summer however, this depression is steep rock slabs with running water and possibly calving snow chunks. We were able to climb a short snow couloir on the front of the short buttress to gain the buttress's crest, then climb the buttress via some loose and devious 4th class with some attention getting exposure (we were unroped), which soon leads to easy ground. Where the buttress steepens dramatically you can traverse out left onto the top of the aforementioned depression, above all the b.s., and continue right across onto Sahale Arm.

[none_dup1]

Bob:

Don't go. It's unclimbable. Don't make Kelly fly again.

John

[JasonG]

i've climbed from park creek pass up and over the east ridge of buckner into horseshoe basin. lots o' loose rock (mostly 4th with some low fifth sections) and not a reccommended route. i'm not sure of the way you are proposing to get into horseshoe basin but it might be a bit better. i'm told that once in h-basin the route up and onto sahale arm isn't that bad (when not snow covered)-much better than our scary vertical bushwack down the non-existent "climbers path" Becky describes into lower horseshoe basin. have a good time-it's a beautiful area that you will probably have all to yourself.

[hans]

 

Oh, Heinie, how can you call our dream trip 'not recommended'?

The northerly lobe of the Buckner Glacier didn't look passable in August of 99, and I don't recall seeing a good route from the glacier to the ridge. The southerly lobe may be better, though.

[forrest_m]

We did the n. face of buckner last october, see trip report posted at http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/Forum2/HTML/000004.html

Due to the scary snow blocks W mentions, we opted to *descend* down into lower H. Basin and hike the trail back up to cascade pass. (an extra 8 miles) We were later convinced by others that it would have been much less work and not really that bad to have followed the typical climber's path back up to sahale arm. See the TR for more details.