[TR] Eldorado Icecap - Eldorado, Austera, and Primus Peak 8/6/2008

[Hayley Sierra]

Trip: Eldorado Icecap - Eldorado, Austera, and Primus Peak

 

Date: 8/6/2008

 

Trip Report:

Last week Nick, Valerie and I decided to take a few days off work to spend some time in the mountains. Our plan was to traverse the Eldorado Icecap, hitting five peaks along the way—Eldorado, Klawatti, Austera, Primus, and Dorado Needle. We headed to the Cascade Pass area on Wednesday afternoon and made our way up the Eldorado creek trail at 3 pm. We found the stream crossing and trail to be in excellent condition, and made good time to camp at the meadows, where we were treated to magnificent views of Johannesburg and other surrounding peaks.

 

 

That night, with Valerie testing out her new emergency bivy (which I affectionately called the “foil sack”), and Nick and I in our rain fly shelter, we experienced our first of what was to become several nights of unsettling weather in the mountains. Fortunately, only light showers reached our campsite that evening, and we were treated with gorgeous weather by the next morning.

 

 

We resumed our ascent of Eldorado at 8 am, heading over the ridge and into the Roush Basin. The Eldorado glacier was mostly clear of crevasses, and we decided to climb unroped until we reached the large, flat area at 7500 feet. Then, with Valerie leading the way, we moved across the glacier to a notch near the base of the East Ridge, where we were able to briefly drop our heavy packs as we climbed to the summit.

 

 

This was my first personal encounter with the infamous “knife edge,” a feature which, when I first saw it in a picture seven years ago, caused me to exclaim that I would never climb this peak. Now, somewhat sadly, the knife edge wasn’t much more than a narrow ridge of snow, and we were able to easily move along it to reach the summit.

 

 

 

 

With the hope of more climbing ahead of us for the day, we dropped back down to our packs and soon made our way across the Inspiration glacier to the col between Klawatti Peak and Tepah Towers. We found a small rock outcropping to set up camp, and were pleased to find running water nearby! With our overnight gear situated, we decided to check out the route on Klawatti Peak, the next mountain on that day’s itinerary, which was to be a simple class 2-3 scramble. We tried to reach the base of the climb by ascending a snowfield very near our camp, but our progress was soon halted by a large moat (~35 feet deep, 10 feet across) which had formed as the snow melted out over the summer.

 

Nick and I approaching the moat.

 

Not wanting to try anything too risky (although we toyed with many ideas about how to get across), we decided it would be better to head further along the base of the mountain and see if we could access the rock elsewhere. This inevitably led to a complete circumnavigation of the peak, as the moats persisted along almost the entire perimeter of the mountain.

 

We finally found a potential scramble route up the southeast ridge, but with the day coming to a close, we would have to leave it for Saturday if we had time after climbing Dorado Needle.

 

Sunset at the col.

 

That night on the col was another exciting experience, because soon after we retired to our respective shelters, a massive thunder and lightening storm hit, with bolts striking all too close to our camp! Rain and wind pelted the tent, and I wondered when Valerie was going to crawl in with me and Nick, but she stuck it out in her bivy, and even claimed that she remained quite comfortable throughout the night as she watched lightening illuminate Forbidden Peak and the rest of the Boston Basin area. What a show!

 

The next morning the weather had cleared (much to my surprise), and we packed up and headed for Austera Peak. We scrambled over a notch along the Klawatti ridge at around 7900 feet, and approached the summit of Austera via a snowfield. After some easy scrambling over the rocky false summit, we got our first view of the summit block (a mere 15 feet higher, but definitely worth the effort), which would be climbed via a 50 foot chimney. We opted to rope up for the ascent of the chimney, and were happy to have the rope for a rappel on the descent as well. A bit more enjoyable scrambling and we were on top!

 

 

 

 

The next item on the list was Primus Peak, which required a descent of about 1200 feet from the base of Austera, followed by a long traverse of the North Klawatti Glacier.

 

 

The scrambling was mostly class 2 boulder hopping, and we were soon atop our third peak of the trip!

 

 

Back at camp, we watched as the weather moved in once again, although we were left dry for the time being. Still, sleep was not to be ours that night either. A particularly daring mountain rat, which had raided our camp the night before, awoke Valerie as it chewed on her bivy bag, and even entered our tent shelter to munch on our gear! However, some sacrificial trail mix on a rock kept him busy for the rest of the night.

 

Again, Saturday was to be the day of our Dorado Needle climb, but this time we weren’t so lucky with the weather. We awoke to a white-out sky and a heavy downpour of rain, and decided that the climb would be a little too intense in those conditions. With that, we packed up and made the trek back across the glaciers. The route finding was somewhat challenging, but we were able to find our way back to the East Ridge and ended up only a few yards from the notch. The weather eased up on us a bit down at the meadows, treating us to one more view of the gorgeous valley as we hiked down the trail.

 

This trip was a wonderful way to explore this scenic area, and literally living on the glaciers for nearly three days as we ascended these peaks made for a real adventure for us. We definitely anticipate returning early next summer for some more fun (and hopefully fewer moats)!

 

[Peakpimp]

Looks like an awesome trip! Great pics too!

[alpineyeti]

Way to get after it guys!! Thinking about going after Eldo and Dorado this weekend.