Boulder Glacier (~7200')

This is mainly a bookmark for how the snowpack is evolving in this anomalous winter/spring/summer (el nino). I fear that this is the new norm but that is my pessimistic side stepping in, and I hope that I am wrong. Others have clearly skied this, but I thought I would contribute a brief report on what the conditions where as I have not found any recent ones (please send me one if you do know of one).

Z and I trekked up to Boulder Glacier on beta that it was “good to go”. We soaked our feet in the bog water and batted at mosquitos as we climbed to nearly 4800’ before we put our skis back on our feet. I swore to never walk this route unless the lower ridge was filled in, but here I am, walking the ridge.

Z and I hiked up to 7200’ before the winds picked up and, remembering the forecast of an incoming storm, decided to turn around and ski sticky snow. At this point, the nearly bluebird day exceeded our expectations because we had proceeded with the notion that there would be nearly a quarter inch of rain accumulating throughout the day. Oh how the weather people were so wrong. However, the incoming wind was from the southwest and felt warm. A fleet of low elevation clouds swarmed in. We unroped and quickly transitioned for a snowpack by 1130 am. Obvious cracks are forming and some areas where snowbridges are apparent are starting to collapse or sag. We decided to rope up around 7000'.

With a quick ski and a transition back into soggy boots, we opted to rap down the small wall of basalt columns. Why not? Of note: The rope up the low 5^th class is still in decent condition, and the 4-5 swaths of webbing around the tree still look reasonably safe.

The trek out is fast and we return to the car, still wondering when the storm would show up….