[TR] McClellen Peak - 4/19/2009

[Hayley Sierra]

Trip: McClellen Peak -

 

Date: 4/19/2009

 

Trip Report:

4/18/09-4/19/09

 

Nick and I decided to take advantage of the nice weather and get some climbing in! Our plan was to do a loop trip in the enchantments via Aasgard pass, combining McClellen Peak and Cannon Mountain in a two day outing.

 

We arrived at Icicle Creek on Friday night, and found to our dismay that Mountaineer Creek road was still gated at Bridge Creek campground. We spent the night at a bivy site and got started up the road at 8 am Saturday morning. We first found snow about 2 miles up (about 1 ft deep initially to several feet by the time we got to the parking lot), which persisted for the rest of the trip.

 

We made fresh tracks across Colchuck Lake, which is still frozen and stable, and began the arduous process of kicking steps in soft snow all the way up Aasgard, which took 3.5 hours.

 

 

Lastly, we descended the Enchantments valley to Perfection Lake, where we set up camp.

 

During the night the wind picked up considerably, and we spent many sleepless hours in the tent before getting up at 6:30 am. We packed up camp and stashed our overnight gear, then made our way to the base of McClellen.

 

 

We found a moderate snow ramp that led us to the main snowfield, with just one short step that we had to negotiate. We headed up the snowfield to a notch just above The Prong, where we had to ascend a steep snow/rock finger to gain the ridge.

 

 

From that point, we ran the ridge to the right and had to loop around the summit slabs to find a decent route up. The scrambling was class 3-4 in most places, which was made more difficult by the presence of soft snow.

 

 

We ended up ascending a somewhat sketchy chimney that was covered in snow to reach the summit block. The ascent took 3.5 hours from camp.

 

 

An enjoyable glissade took us to the base of the mountain, and we were soon back to camp. We packed up and were ready to head out by 2 pm. At this point, we decided to change plans and just head back down Aasgard pass to the trailhead. It was getting too late in the day to go for Cannon, especially knowing that there may by some routefinding issues on the back side of the mountain which we were not willing to negotiate in the dark. Oh well, it gave us the opportunity to enjoy more glissading down Aasgard, and we were back to the lake by 4 pm. The hike out seemed painfully long, and our progress slowed considerably as we post-holed to our knees with nearly every step (as much as the weather reminded me of spring, snowshoes were definitely essential). We reached the car (the CAR!) at 10:30 pm and began the long drive back to Bellingham.

 

This summit puts me at #32 for completed climbs of the Bulger Top 100 list. I hope to finish a few more this spring/summer before leaving Washington (temporarily) for grad school!

 

 

 

 

Approach Notes:

Mountaineer Creek road still closed (snow for the last 1.5 miles to trailhead)

 

Snowshoes (or some other flotation device) are advised.

[Val Zephyr]

Yuck! Way to tough it out hiking up Aasgard without skis or snowshoes.

[Lisa_D]

looks like some great conditioning and a beautiful trip.

[belayerslayer]

way to git her done