skibum1087 Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 (edited) Trip: Dorado Needle/Eldorado - Northwest ridge/Northeast face Date: 7/22/2008 Trip Report: My friend Todd and I spent a 3 day weekend exploring the Eldorado area. It was both of our first times up there and my only thoughts are that I have been hanging out in the wrong part of the cascades, the Cascade river road area is awesome. The first day we suffered hauling our oversized packs up to 7600 and dry camping at the base of the East Ridge. The views spectacular. We had a leisurely morning, setting off across the Inspiration glacier around ten o clock headed for the Dorado needle. After about an hour of walking towards the pass it came into view. After a few shenanigans crossing the moat, where I stood on a teetering ice block that rolled into the moat, firmly wedging itself between the walls allowing us passage onto the rock. The first pitch was fun face climbing leading to the ridge crest where suddenly you could see thousands of feet straight down into the marble creek cirque. The climbing was easy, on solid rock, and constantly involved hands on the crest knife edge style moves. All too soon we were at the top. We down led one pitch, then 2 rappels brought us back to the glaciers edge. We had originally planned on heading out to austera next, but mushy snow and the heat of the day had us reconsidering. We went up the Northeast face of Eldorado on the way back towards camp. It is nothing more than an easy step kick right now with only a few small nessecary step overs for opening crevasses. The summit was great, we bootskied down the east ridge, and returned to camp for beef stick sandwhiches because we managed to run out of stove fuel on the very first morning. All in all it was an awesome trip. I found the dorado needle to be more interesting and enjoyable than other moderate alpine routes such as west ridge of prusik, the becky route on liberty bell and SEWS south arete, so I would highly reccomend it. Gear Notes: What we used: green alien, red alien, number 1 camelot, small set of nuts, and glacier gear. Running water was available 400 feet above the dry bivis, but I would not count on it remaining. Approach Notes: Eldorado creek, up up and up Edited July 23, 2008 by skibum1087 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Peakpimp Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Awesome! Glad you liked it... The Cascade Pass area has got to be one of my all time favorites Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skykilo Posted July 23, 2008 Share Posted July 23, 2008 Isn't that area something else? Do you have any sweet shots of the north side of the Triad? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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