[TR] Shuksan - Price Glacier 8/19/2010

[jiri]

Trip: Shuksan - Price Glacier

 

Date: 8/19/2010

 

Trip Report:

Jens and I packed up at the Austin Pass TH where we left my car that would wait for our return via the Fisher Chimneys. Then we jumped to in his car and drove back down hwy 542 and some 2.5 miles on what appeared to be recently improved forest road to the Nisqually Cirque TH. It was my first time in this area but according to Jens also the initial part of the trail seen some improvements and we were able to get to the other side of the Nooksack River on logs avoiding the traditional wading.

The first 3 miles follow an old logging road. The tricky part is to locate a climber’s trail that goes steeply down to the river. I noticed there was the Wilderness sign a few yards before this turn off which might serve as a good landmark. After getting down to the river we could see the most photographed crossing log upstream but it took a bit of work to get to it.

 

Log crossing

 

After crossing the river there’s a faint trail leading up to the lateral moraine above Price Lake. Staying on the trail was not all that bad even though we got sidetracked a couple of times but higher you go the easier the following gets.

 

Gaining the moraine was a happy moment for me. First you get Price-less views of the mountain and second it marked the end of tree needles behind my neck. As we were rounding the mountain following the moraine our route was revealing more and more of its secrets. This gave us a good chance to study the route and make plans for our line of ascent.

 

Entrence to the upper Price Glacier

 

The middle section of the Price Glacier

 

The upper section of the Price Glacier

 

A few notes about following the trail here – eventually the moraine walk ends and it starts traversing a slope above the lake. It might be tempting to up to gain the ridge above to your left. Fight the temptation and keep traversing until it cliffs out, only then start heading up. When the terrain gets less steep start traversing right again on heather and slabs to gain the lower Price glacier without ever reaching the ridge. Here our approach turned into a glacier slog. My mind started aimlessly wandering around as we were heading up towards our intended bivy site. I guess it was drifting over the Austin Pass trail head when I realized the keys for my car were in Jen’s car. I gave Jens the good news. We were too close to the climb and too far from the trail head to even talk about turning around. The plan was to get down the mountain early to increase our chances of hitching a ride. Jens also suggested bivying on a knoll at the base of the Nooksack Tower to save time. Unsure about a flat spot to sleep on and having source of flowing water I reluctantly agreed. But we were not the first travelers passing by and we found two bivy sites. On a scouting mission after dinner I also found pools of water fed by a small snow patch so we had all we needed at one of the wildest bivy in the Cascades.

 

Lower Price Glacier

 

Price Lake

 

The route from our bivy

 

We got up at 3:30, shared one Via from my last climb I discovered in the pack and started climbing by 4:30. Right at the entrance to the upper Price glacier is the most dangerous section - a groove carved by ice block peeling off from the ice cliff above. After safely crossing this section with sound effects provided by the ice cliff above we gained a wide ramp in the middle and started trending to the right side of the glacier. The pictures I took the day before were showing some potential for route finding trouble in this section but everything went smooth. On the right side of the broken up section we got to a wide ice gully which provided morning exercise for the calves and also access to the low angle snow slope below the final obstacle – the wall to wall bergschrund. lly

 

Jens using piolet ramasse in the ice gully

 

Looking back at our bivy (marked)

 

Crevasses below the final bergschrund

 

Nooksack Tower

 

Curly clouds above Nooksack Tower

 

Sunrise

 

Jens spotted a connecting ramp system on the left side so we chose that as the most appealing way to bypass the bergschrund. To gain the ramp we had to climb one steep pitch inside the bergschrund. Once on the ramp we got a view of the right hand side rock bypass. The final bergschrund problem are currently two parallel bergschrunds and the rock bypass while looking possible would be more time consuming and difficult especially around the transitions from rock to snow.

 

Left-hand side bypass

 

Climbing through the bergschrund

 

Jens climbing ice flake to gain the ramp seen on the left side

 

First we followed the lower ramp to the far left to get around a crevasse. Once above the crevasse we traversed back right towards the rock. Here a little bit of class 3 scrambling took us to the snow and ice slopes above both bergschrunds. Once there the difficulties turned out to be over and soon we were on the flats at the top of Crystal Glacier and traversing towards the Sulphide Glacier and the standard gully of the summit pyramid. We left packs and gear at the base a scrambled up arriving to the top around 10am.

 

Two parallel bergschrunds and view of the right hand side rock bypass

 

Rock scramble

 

Jens and his piolet canne above the rock scramble – the last steep section on the route

 

A few more steps but no more difficulties to the top of Price

 

’Hey Jiri, we’re in the Himalayas’

 

I guess we are

 

Jens arriving to the top of the pyramid, Baker floating in the clouds

 

About 6 hours later I got to the Austin Pass TH a little bit ahead of Jens. I didn’t run into anybody I could ask for a ride on the trail which I thought would be easier that hitchhiking but luckily there was an older couple in a car at the parking lot that just finished hiking and was getting ready to head down. I asked them explaining how we screwed up and they agreed without hesitation. Thanks a lot for the ride again. After getting to the lower TH I drove back up in Jens’ car to get my car and Jens himself. By 5pm I was heading down the road for the 4th time but this time it’d be all the way home.

 

Overall the conditions on the route looked good providing exciting and fun challenges. I’d guess it will stay in the same shape a bit longer. One snow bridge at a bergschrund below the Nooksack Tower might be gone but there’s a way around it on rock. Most importantly the left side bypass of the upper bergschrund should still be good.

 

 

Gear Notes:

one ice axe and one tool, 4 ice screws, 1 picket, a little bit of rock gear

[Off_White]

outstanding, really great pics too

[Jens]

Thanks Jiri for the good time.

 

To any out of town climbers visiting on a trip, you really can't go wrong with any of the six Cascade Range routes that were selected for the "50 Classic Climbs of North America" they are all some of the best in the range.

 

It would be cool for someone to solo all six in six consecutive days. Maybe next year....

[AlpineK]

Nice TR and pictures.

 

Now I'm mad at myself for blowing off The Price Glacier.

[Peakpimp]

Nice work gentlemen! I want that route pretty bad!!!

[t_rutl]

Great TR and pics!

[sparverius]

thanks for the inspiration

[Gaucho Argentino]

Beautiful pics, Dude ! The Glacier looks pretty broken, no ice falling at all?

[Iggy]

Nice work. I'd still recommend it earlier in the year. I did it in the first week of July '91. It was still chopped up but not as bad. We took about the same path up to the big crevasse. I think that wall to wall crevasse is always there. We rapped into it and climbed out the right side up a "bobsled run" next to the rock waiting for more chunks to hit. Makes you move a bit faster.

 

It was our third time in there due to weather so we left camp at 0830 after we dried out. We were on a mission from God. I would not recommend the late start.