Glacier Peak - Late September Conditions

[Newman55]

I'm in the early stages of planning a 3-day summit attempt on Glacier Peak.

 

We want to travel as fast and light as possible and I'm wondering what we need to bring for the mountain.

 

Right now the plan is to carry ice axes, and perhaps a 30meter rope. Not sure about crampons, will probably opt for lighter micro-spikes or yak-trax. Leaving behind pulleys, pickets, etc.

 

Any tips on snow conditions this late in the Season would be a huge help. Thanks!

[Alasdair]

You will be fine with 30m rope and no pickets, but if you do have a crevasse fall you dont have any way to do a rescue. Who ever goes in must get themselves out. I have not carried pulleys in years on any mountain, so you can skip those too. Going on any peak in the cascades without crampons seems a bit silly. Why dont you just take some aluminum crampons and call it good. You are not saving that much weight, but you will be saving your ass if you get on ice.

[Newman55]

For the sake of posterity...

 

We brought a 40M dry glacier rope and tied all 4 climbers to it 10m apart. (not recommended but it's the only rope we had under 60M and we didn't want the additional weight). Everyone also wore crampons and carried an ice axe and poles.

 

We spent a total of about 3.5 hours on glacier, moving quickly to avoid exposure to rock fall. there were a few crevasses open, but most were covered with thin snow-bridges. one guy climbing the previous day punched through with one leg, but he was able to climb away safely with help.

 

also a very small section of travel over small seracs and ice boulders seen below and to the left of climbers on the photo, deep cracks and crevasses underneath. total travel across this section was around 300 feet.

 

on summit at around 10:30 am, and headed back down after 30 minutes break. the snow had softened considerably but the rockfall hadn't increased at all, so we were fine.

 

we did spot a wolverine on the Cool Glacier below us, which was an awesome 1st time experience for all of us.

 

round trip from and back to Glacier Gap was around 5.5 hours.