[TR] Glacier Peak - N/A 5/24/2015

[Wllperegoy]

Trip: Glacier Peak - N/A

 

Date: 5/24/2015

 

Trip Report:

After months of dreaming of Glacier Peak, I finally got to take a shot at it with my friends Robin and Everritt

 

Friday:

 

We got to the North Fork Sauk trail-head around 7:30PM on Friday night. We had decided to hike to the Mackinaw Shelter that night to take some of the mileage off for our hike on Saturday. After about 45 minutes of messing with gear and finding the food we thought we had forgotten, we hit the trail. We kept a good pace and ended up finishing the hike in the dark. We actually didn't make it to the shelter but rather to a camp right before the wooden bridge river crossing. We saw camp spots and assumed we were in the right place so we set up camp and slept for the night.

 

Saturday:

 

We got up around 9:30-10ish on Saturday. After about half an hour we had camp broken down and were ready to hit the trail. Before we left we realized we hadn't actually made it to the Mackinaw Shelter and figured we had about a mile and a half to go. We began our hike and ended up reaching the Mackinaw Shelter a little while later. After the shelter we began the hike up the switchbacks and reached the intersection with the PCT about an hour and 45 minutes later. At this point there were several snow covered sections of trail, so we decided to put on mountaineering boots and bring out our ice axes. After we got off the PCT and under White Mountain, we found ourselves on a large snowfield but luckily with a good boot-path to follow. We traversed under White Mountain and made our way up to a ridge a little ways away from White Mountain. It was here where we found ourselves in the fog with about 5 more miles to go and around 2,000 feet of elevation left till base camp. Due to our inexperience with route-finding in the fog, we decided to turn around and head back. As we left and headed back down to the Mackinaw Shelter we saw about 5 parties that were headed to Glacier Peak, we decided not to follow them and instead come back another time. We got to the Mackinaw Shelter later that night and hiked out the next morning.

 

Not the most exciting trip report but I figured I'd post some information on the conditions up there since I myself couldn't find much recent information before heading out on Friday. Thanks for reading.

 

 

Gear Notes:

Brought 2 snow pickets, ice axes, crampons, mountaineering boots, rope

 

Approach Notes:

No snow until near the intersection with the PCT. After that it looked like it was completely snow-covered to base camp so there isn't really any trail to follow at this point, however there should be a decent boot-path now due to the other parties that followed us.

Edited May 29, 2015 by Wllperegoy

[Ian1216]

Hey! Pretty sure I found your snow picket on the way down. It was in the snow right around white pass and it has your name on it. PM me about it.

[Jason4]

Hi there... this is Jason4's lady friend just writing you a quick not with some beta...because my friends and I recently climbed Glacier Peak (on our second attempt after getting a thorough spanking the first time around).

 

Basically our first attempt went only a touch better than yours. We started late with too much Oasis Bagel in our bellies, made it to White Mountain and camped on it, then didn't make it too far past when the heat of the second day started taking out cornices and causing big wet slides. We tucked our tails and ran, or quickly hobbled, our depressed way down those miserable switchbacks and back to the truck. Defeated, we drank too much Tecate and napped in the parking lot.

 

Attempt #2 was 5 days later. We left the truck at 6am, successfully getting through the switchbacks before the sun decided to try to melt our faces off. From the intersection with the PCT we literally climbed directly upwards to the ridge, descended and traversed from that point towards (what I imagine to be a beautiful meadow without snow) at 5600 ft, NE of White Mt. The creeks here were almost wide open, and would make a good stop for filling water without melting snow. From there it was fairly easy moving and route finding. Be mindful of the slightly covered waterfalls and small creeks, though.

 

Just for a time gauge, we had skis, but car to camp near the White Chuck Glacier took us 10 hours. Camp to summit back to car took us 12 hours of full on charging. Seriously. GPS tracked us on the trail out moving at 4.2mph.

[obwan]

Thanks for the trip reports - and a condition report, helps a lot. You're efforts are Atypical for Glacier Peak - approaches always seem to kick butts.