[TR] Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier climb, Sherpa Glacier ski 4/25/2010

[danhelmstadter]

Trip: Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier climb, Sherpa Glacier ski

 

Date: 4/25/2010

 

Trip Report:

 

Stuart and Sherpa taken the evening of the day of my ski.

 

I lucked out - and someone had recently broken trail past the colchuck turnoff - so I would have a track to guide me up to the upper mountaineers creek basin -- which can be a little tricky. Leaving the parkinglot around 5pm, I stomped a bivy spot in the high trees/creek at the base of Stuart around 9, my alarm failed to wake me the next morning -- so I got going around 9am. Snowshoers had scrunched by in the wee hours of the morning, and thier tracks indicated they headed up the Stuart Glacier area.

 

lower ice cliff glacier route

 

To my great luck -- There was a fresh boot pack heading up the Ice Cliff Glacier (Thanks to you!) Snow conditions were not looking promiseing - and did not improve as I gained the Ice step, which was completely lanched out in the last wet avy cycle -- and froze hard again, leaving thick ice crusts and frozen death cookies pretty much everywhere. The ice step was easily negotiable, and I donned skins/ski crampons once on the glacier to lessen the risk of taking a dark dive. I followed the boot pack and passed the bergshrund on climbers left, snow conditions temporarily improved as I travesed into the couloir, but then quickly deteriorated as the couloir had avalanched out and left icy runnles and ice crusts in more spots than not, where there was not - there was shallow wind affected pow.

 

Once at the top of the Ice Cliff Glacier couloir, I continued to the summit in softening neve snow, I met several stoked skiiers descending into the cascadian couloir. The summit was cool and breezy - and the views sucked

 

cheese summit shot

 

Since the Ice Cliff route was too icy to be an enjoyable ski, I dropped into the Sherpa Glacer route. A fun moderate angle gully led to wide open large low angle slopes. Conditions in the gully alternated between frozen neve to shallow new wind affected snow.

The myesterious bootpackers had also chosen to ski this route.

 

 

Conditions on the lower glacier went from windblown to frozen neve, to shredder corn in the sun.

 

I decided against heading out that evening, and instead relocated bivys to slopes above the east fork and that is where I took the first picture far above from. It was a pleasant cool windless evening, and I was visited by a single bird in the last minutes of light - it perched on a pine limb and cherped into the night.

 

 

 

 

[Pilchuck71]

When I grow up I want to be like Dan!

[summitchaserCJB]

Solid

[mountainsloth]

solid work as usual dan. any glimpses at the north ridge? wondering how long I have to wait before my Spring attempt at it.

[KaskadskyjKozak]

 

How consolidated is the snow on the route? Any exposed ice at the bottom to pitch out? Would snowshoeing to the base and hoofing it up early morning be reasonable? What were the snow conditions on the ridge run like to the summit?

[SWH]

Hey Dan, myself and my buddy Ian were the two who preceded you up the Ice Cliff and down the Sherpa. Pretty fun climb/ski, glad our tracks helped somebody out. We were thinking about making our CC debut on this trip, but alas the camera died. Nice pictures!

 

To answer some of the other questions: the North Ridge still has quite a bit of snow on it. The route (ice cliff) itself is fairly consolidated but has sections of new snow as of morning 4/25. You could do a pitch of semi-steep ice at the base of the glacier if you wanted. The summit ridge was easy firm snow.

[JoshK]

Nice! Same situation when I did this several years back - Ice Cliff was too cruddy to be a reasonable ski so we went down the Sherpa. Still a great ski.

[rocketparrotlet]

How technical is this route right now? AI2/3?

[John Frieh]

Snowshoers had scrunched by in the wee hours of the morning, and thier tracks indicated they headed up the Stuart Glacier area

 

Sorry if we woke you up... we tried to be quiet going by. Nice work on the Sherpa

[danhelmstadter]

thanks for the positive comments!

 

SWH, yeah you guys really made things easier for me, especially on the approach - you took a really direct line through the trailess woods, sucks about your camera - they always seem to die just when you could use them the most. I hope you get to ski the cliff next time - Sky wasn't kidding when he mentioned in his TR how difficult it is to find good ski conditions on that route!

 

Rocketparrotlet, I don't think the route is very technical currently, though there was a steep section of glacier with very shallow snow cover - but I didn't need to bust out my second tool.

 

 

no worries John!

 

[Good2Go]

Hey Dan,

 

I was one of the skiers you ran into on the summit on Sunday. The reason we were so stoked is that we were skiing Ulrich's in perfect corn. Was great all the way to the creek. From the sounds of it, you should check out the S side. Here's the pic I took of you coming up to the summit.

[AllYouCanEat]

Dang, I sat home. I'm kicking myself in the butt. The weather looked worse there than elsewhere. Nevertheless, thanks for sharing the stoke. Both those routes are great. Perhaps I will have to go do ulrich's if the weather is bad elsewhere.

[John Frieh]

For what it is or isnt worth the SGC is currently not sporting an ice step so one could ski the entire thing without having to jump anything. Just thought I'd throw that out there

[skykilo]

^^^That's some sick beta from my oubliette in the lab.

 

Go capitalize on that and quit sending me bullshit emails, Dan!

 

 

[JoshK]

Much better objectives than the SCG for a badass like Dan to ski, imo. It's been years since I climbed that but I remember it being fairly short - the crux of that route was all the rime and snow shroom covered west ridge rock not the fairly average SCG.