[TR] Primus Peak - Thunder Creek/Borealis Glacier 9/3/2010

[JasonDowns]

Trip: Primus Peak - Thunder Creek/Borealis Glacier

 

Date: 9/3/2010

 

Trip Report:

My dad and I decided to go climb Primus Peak over the Labor Day weekend. There isnt much info on this climb via Thunder Creek so I figured i'd post a quick report.

 

Left Seattle around 1:00pm on Friday, skipping out early from work, and got to the Thunder Creek trailhead around 4:30pm. McAllister camp was our objective for the evening and we covered the 6.7 miles in just over 2 hrs. Set up camp right at the base of the ridge where the climbers path starts.

 

Got up at 5:30am, Saturday morning, and were off towards the Borealis Glacier by 6:15am. The climbers path is fairly visible for the first 2000 ft of the hike up to the glacier. Once you get to the first plateau in the ridge, it tends to disappear and reappear every so often until you get into the thinner alpine environment at around the 5000 ft level. From there, the path is pretty obvious. The going is never really tough as we made the 4100 ft climb, with 35 lbs packs, in a little under 3 hrs.

 

We set up camp near the northern shores of the tarn and took off for the summit. Our route went up the west side of the Borealis (not straight up the glaciers east side like some reports say) due to the how heavily crevassed and steep the east side was). The route finding and crevasse negotiation was never a problem. We made it to Lucky Pass in about 3 hrs after leaving camp (this could be done faster but we took a detour to check out the NW face of Primus prior to heading east towards the pass).

 

The route from the pass to the summit is real easy...class 2/3 tops. We summited around 1:30pm and hung around for about 30 - 45 mins eating lunch and taking in the unbelievable views. Very awesome vantage point, definitely one I will never forget!

 

Made quick work back to the glaciers terminus, going around the east side of the tarn as my dad wanted to check out the lakes outlet and go explore a bit. Got back to camp at around 5pm.

 

The next morning we woke up fairly early and headed back to the car. I believe the trip time for that morning was right around 4 hrs. The reason I bring up the times is that I believe this trip could be done from McAllister camp, as opposed to the glacier like we did. This would save some wear and tear on your body by not having to haul your loaded pack all the way up to the glacier. With the times we posted (and we are by no means a super speedy group) it would have been completely possible to leave when we did from McAllister camp with light day packs and make the summit of Primus and back down in one long day (even though our camp at the tarn was one of the most memorable ive had...very beautiful setting with the glacier and both Primus and Tricouni Peaks towering above. Also great views up the Fisher valley towards Ragged Ridge).

 

Pics here: FLICKR

 

Another great and memorable trip with the ol' man as he trys to complete the T100 list Hes been the best climbing partner I could ever ask for (dont know if he'd say the same about me though LOL).

 

Gear Notes:

Trekking poles, ice axe, crampons, rope (8mm x 30m). We actually never roped up or used the ice axes but that all depends on your comfort levels I guess.

 

Approach Notes:

Look for cairns along the climbers path up to the glacier. My dad built quite a few so this should make following the path easier at times. .

[DPS]

Nice trip report and excellent photos of an aspect I had not seen before. Thank you.

[JasonDowns]

My pleasure I feel ive mooched off this site long enough...time to start paying back with some trip reports!

[mountainsloth]

beautiful!

[Dan_Miller]

Thanks Jason, great TR on a direct route to a remote area. The trudge up the hillside doesn't seem so complex or daunting as I might have envisioned.

[Fairweather]

Very nice. I just added that one to my list.

[sepultura]

Looks like a great trip! Thanks for sharing, I am going to put this trip near the top of my to do list.