ericb Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 Climb: Silver Star -Silver Star Creek/Glacier Date of Climb: 4/22/2006 Trip Report: Given the weather report, my buddy Brian and I decided to beat the post-Highway 20-opening crowds by making the long drive from Seattle to the Silver Star Creek trailhead via Mazama on Friday night. We were rewarded by amazing weather, great/stable snow conditions,and limited crowds....4 day-trippers from Wenatchee to be exact. We camped on the shoulder of Highway 20 and left the car at around 8:30 AM saturday with Rando gear, light overnight gear, 30 meter rope, and few pieces of pro (based on past years' beta about doing the climb in spring conditions). A group from Wenatchee (3 rando, 1 tele) pulled in while we were gearing up, and left ~ 30 minutes before we did. We booted the first steep ~ 500 vf from the car, but were able to skin the rest of the way to camp in the basin at around 6400'. We kept a comfortable pace and made it to camp at around 1:30 PM. The weather was amazing and we lazed around camp until the sun dropped behind the ridge and it got cold. It got much colder Saturday night than expected, and we were glad we both brought our 15 deg bags. The group from Wenatchee came by camp on the way out. Two had gone to within 15 feet of the summit, but didn't feel comfortable going higher unprotected. The following morning we got moving at ~ 7AM, with great skinning through ~ 14" of settled snow w/breakable crust from the previous weekend's storm. We saw lots of avvy debris from the early week warm-up, but the snow above 7000' was still rather soft, although consolidated. We made the Col ~ 10AM, rested a bit, ditched the skis, and booted to within 15 feet of the summit in continuous perfect snow conditions - (no crampons, no wallowing). The snow cover was getting a little thin in places, so it will likely have more exposed rock soon. We patted ourselves on the back for having hauled the rando rope and small rack 5200 vf, and finished the pitch with one double sling on a horn, and #1 camelot. Probably a little conservative, but we needed to justify hauling cams. Also, rando boots add a grade level to the scrambling. Summiting involved belaying each other up the last pitch from below as there were no anchor opportunities up top. The 15 foot traverse to straddle the true summit was spicey to say the least. Views from the top were unbelievable! At around noon, we headed down....we downclimbed to the col, donned the skis, and had a awesome although tiring ski down through heavy windblown snow to camp. We packed up and were able to ski all the way to Highway 20 by ~ 3PM. After a late lunch and my traditional post-climb mocha milkshake in Winthrop we were on our way Seattle. This is my first post, so not entirely clear on how to put pictures into the report, so here they are: http://spaces.msn.com/ericbakke/photos/?_c02_owner=1 Gear Notes: Floation, 30M rope, slings and a #1 Camelot....(probably didn't need the Camelot) Didn't need crampons, ski or boot Approach Notes: Road open to Silver Star Creek. Snow from the Highway to within 15 feet of the summit Quote
magellan Posted April 26, 2006 Posted April 26, 2006 Nice pictures, and a fantastic couple of days in the valley! Welcome. Quote
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