Buckner-Logan Traverse

Original trip report: https://engineeredforadventure.com/buckner-logan-traverse/

Background

I've had mixed feelings about ski traverses over the last few years; I haven't done that many, often opting to go for day trips or specific ski descents. But sometimes conditions/weather/stoke just makes sense for a traverse, when surface conditions on steeper faces aren't quite right or when the weather is just too damn good for a stretch of time.

One of those windows rolled around this spring after some higher elevation rain on snow and warm temperatures. A four day stretch of good weather beckoned, with sunny skies and warm (but not too warm) freezing levels. The traverse wheels began to turn...

Nick and I had blocked off a few week stretch this April to make something happen on skis; we waffled on whether to stay in the Cascades or go up to Canada, as we often do. We agreed that if we could come up with an idea in the home range that called to us, we'd stay; if not, flee up to Canada we would. Nick headed to work for a 2-day shift and I started brainstorming. Hmm...what could we do?

Highway 20 remaining closed shut down some options, but I've been constantly intrigued by the Banded Glacier on Mt. Logan. Logan is remote, but not thaaaat remote, tucked just far enough away that it feels out of reach. I consulted some old trip reports from Lowell Skoog on his 'Thunder High Route' (from Rainy Pass to Eldorado Peak) and 'Logan High Route' (from Rainy Pass to Cascade Pass). Friends of mine Kyle McCrohan and Kyle Johnson (along with Doug Hutchinson and Silvia Domcke) traversed from Easy Pass to Cascade Pass in 2021, similarly hitting Mt. Logan along the way.

Logan was on the mind, so I started drawing lines on Caltopo. I wanted to check out the Wyeth Glacier as well, a glacier I'd heard about from Jason Hummel but hadn't read much about. It seemed feasible, a 'red line' was drawn, and text waffling began. Lane and Michael were psyched as well. We chatted, hatched a plan, packed some heavy packs, and off we went.

Our rough plan was to utilize a 3 day weather window, with a fourth 'marginal' day as a hike out Thunder Creek.

Day 1 - Hike into Sahale Arm on Wednesday afternoon, camp as high as possible to put ourselves in position for the ski into Horseshoe Basin.

Day 2 - The next day we'd climb Buckner's SW Face, ski it, then traverse around to the Buckner Glacier and ski north into Park Creek. From there we'd ascend to a bench beneath Storm King and camp, positioning for the Wyeth.

Day 3 - Climb up to the Wyeth Glacier, ski the Wyeth down into Bridge Creek. Then ascend from Bridge Creek to the Douglas Glacier on Logan, climb up and then ski the Banded Glacier down into Logan Creek all the way down to the Fisher Creek trail.

Day 4 - Hike out the Fisher Creek trail to our car at Diablo Lake.

Trip Report

Day 1 - into Sahale Arm

Nick, Lane and I set shuttle at Diablo Lake and drove back to Marblemount to meet Michael midday. We drove in and started hiking just before 4P. Our timing was great, we rode the sun-shade line all the way to Cascade Pass. Temps were ideal, with a little breeze and few clouds above. Our packs were heavy but stoke was high and we were excited for the terrain ahead.

We sauntered our way up the arm in evening glow, aiming for the moraines just before the cross-over into Horseshoe Basin. We could feel the re-freeze beginning as sunset started, setting up our corn for the next day. We opted to forego the mid for the night, digging ourselves 'snow coffins' instead for a night under the stars.

Day 2 - Buckner SW, Buckner Glacier to Storm King camp

The snow coffin was a cold night for me. The kind of night where you don't feel like you fall asleep, but after hours of waiting for sleep to hit you feel rested. I'll take it...

The night before we'd talked about our timing for the day. Hitting the SW face of Buckner in corn was going to be tricky from a timing perspective. We wanted to get through the crossover into Horseshoe Basin early, which gets very early easterly light, pretty much first thing. However, the southwest face of Buckner doesn't really get sun this time of year until 10A or so. At first, we talked about skiing it around noon, which felt late to me. But after thinking on it more, sounded about right. Getting the brain into 'corn mode' for the first time of the year sometimes can lag for me, resetting on timelines and such. Thankfully I had Caltopo's sun exposure layer cached for the zone, which helped.

We agreed on leaving camp by 9A the night before; once we woke, though, everyone's energy hurried the other. We didn't discuss, nobody specifically was in a rush, but the buzz of packing began and one monkey followed the other. We pushed off from camp around 8A, 30-45 minutes too early to be honest. It's better to be on the early side of spring warmth, but we could tell that the ski into Horseshoe Basin would have been lovely in another 30-45 minutes.

Nick, rightfully, slowed the group once we were done with the traverse into Horseshoe. Guys, we need to slow our roll. We were glad to be through the cross-over, which has always struck fear into me and the other guys. A steeper, east facing pitch on a rock slab...just feels sketchy. We lounged and talked through our approach for Buckner. We'd lug our overnight gear to the base of the face, then dig a hole and dump overnight kits for the top-out. Once back at the packs we'd traverse east around a buttress at ~6,500' towards a north facing shot into the Buckner Glacier.

Skinning up to the SW Face of Buckner went easy and before long we were at the base of the face. The SW Face of Buckner has been a line we've all drooled over for a while, but honestly, being below it we were all a little underwhelmed. From afar it looks longer and more sustained, and on this particular day, smoother than it was in reality. Complaining aside, we were all still psyched to check it out.

We booted up the face in firm condition, noting that softening wasn't quite happening yet. There was a slight wind up high and the face's westerly tilt kept it out of direct morning sunlight. By about 11A or so, we were on top of the 'skier's summit', standing over the north face line. Wow, that looks amazing. I'd never stood atop the north face of Buckner; Nick and Lane have both skied it, maybe some day Michael and I will become Buckner Boys. It wasn't the day for it, as I scraped my pole noting a firm crust with skiffs of snow atop. We panned our heads to the two summits of Buckner, noting that neither was worth the effort for us today. Another time...

We lounged atop, staring down at Park Creek basin and looking over at the Buckner Glacier, where we'd head next. We snacked for a bit, then clicked in and started to head down. We started down around 1130A or so, which still wasn't late enough for corn but oh well. I got into position to smash the shutter a few times as the boys skied shaved ice. The face was enjoyable enough, but definitely left enough to be desired for another go sometime.

The lower pitches of the face were great corn and we debated skiing down the lower slopes into Horseshoe Basin. Talking it through, though, we still had a lot of terrain to cover and we didn't want to get too greedy with our timing in Park Creek. We skied to our overnight kit hole, loaded the hogs back up and traversed east towards the sneak onto the Buckner Glacier. The day was heating up and we skinned excellent corn up to the entry couloir to the Buckner Glacier.

There were two options for getting into the Buckner Glacier; we chose the lower of the two options as we skinned right up to it. There was a big snow booger (cornice) looming above, so we agreed to ski quickly down through it. The snow in the couloir was funky, not-yet-transitioned powder that oscillated between dry, manky, and grabby. Once down on the lower angle slopes of the Buckner Glacier, though, we found supportable ripper corn all the way down to the valley. Polar slopes that had a lower angle pitch had seen more sun and transitioned more fully. We arced big turns down the Buckner Glacier, pointing our skis towards the creek. We found a nice beach to lounge in for a while, stripping off the ski clothes and sipping some fine spring water.

After our beach vacation, we debated our climb into the basin beneath Storm King and Goode. We'd marked two options on our map: one further down valley that followed the climber's descent down the burn zone, another that punched more directly up from the highest NPS campsite on the map. We discussed, opting to give the more direct option a try and maybe endure some BS for a few hundred feet but save some distance with the hogs.

BS there was, with some steep skinning, wet skins, and heavy packs; we all just set in for some grindy-sloggy minutes to hours. We found a wolverine track that led through a gully system and then punched our way through some baby trees to the bench at ~5,700'. Tired and around 4P or so at that point, we opted to call it a day and make camp. We set up a clothesline, dried our stuff out in the sun, and sat admiring the north face of Booker.

We spent the evening gazing around at the terrain around us. Like many good adventures, we marked more lines on our maps to come back for. Michael and I opted to set the mid up for the night, while Nick and Lane dug their snow coffins again. We had a much more pleasant night, over a thousand feet lower down and with some warmer temperatures.

Day 3 - Wyeth Glacier, Banded Glacier out to Fisher Creek

We did a better job on morning of day 3 of not slow-rushing out of camp. We had talked about leaving camp between 9-930A to time the Wyeth Glacier in a bit better condition than Buckner; it was a pretty direct shot up from camp and wouldn't take us too long to get up to the top, we thought around 11A or so.

We left camp just after 9A and began the day. We had a lot of terrain to cover, the exit off the Wyeth and gaining the slopes up to the Douglas Glacier from Bridge Creek being two potential cruxes. Climbing up to the Wyeth went smoothly, with the exception of me dropping one of my gloves. I hurried back to get it and rejoined the boys. We were on our timeline at the top of the Wyeth, stoked for a long descent into Bridge Creek. We weren't sure what the exit off the Wyeth would be like, but we had two glacier lines and some cord.

The top of the Wyeth was borderline pow and I positioned myself to smash the shutter a few times. The position was absolutely wild, with expansive views of the Logan massif and Black Peak in the distance. We enjoyed oscillating between pow on steeper rolls and crusty corn on lower angle slopes.

We rode the western side of the Wyeth Glacier down to ~6,200', where things started to get weird. Steep convexities, at this point forested and quite manky, rolled over with waterfalls and ravines to either side. Looking at satellite imagery didn't reveal any obvious weaknesses; Michael and Lane scouted on either side of the rib we were on, with no obvious great option. We had high cloud cover helping us out with keeping the warming at bay, thankfully. We had a 40m glacier line and a 30m glacier line; we skied to the edge of the rib we were on at ~6,000' and prepared a rappel off a tree. I got ready quickly, as Michael and Lane tied off the anchor and threw the ropes. Between the four of us, we had plenty of slings to make a multi-stage rappel if we needed, but we all felt fairly confident that a single 30m rap would do it.

It was quite jungly, but the rappel went fine with the 30m touching snow. I radioed up, Michael followed (much more smoothly than I), then Nick, and finally Lane. Whew, nice work boys. We pushed through some mank over towards the head of Bridge Creek at the base of a steep, south facing slope that led up towards the Douglas Glacier, our next crux for the day.

The high clouds really helped us, a lot. That south facing slope was steep enough to give us pause, investigating ways up through the cirque towards the Douglas. Storm clouds were clearly building in the distance, pushing us onwards. We brewed up, refilling our bottles for the long climb up to Logan. We opted to take a pitch looker's right on the east side of the cirque that involved some steep side hilling but nothing too terrible, from ~5,100' to ~5,800'. After that it benched out and our cortisol levels could lower back down to homeostasis, for a bit.

We followed another wolverine track onto the Douglas Glacier, where we turned to the west towards the saddle above the Banded Glacier. The sky was quite grey, at this point, and we laughed out how we might get snowed on. We roped up for the Douglas; a brief rockfall kept us on edge as we neared the saddle. At the saddle, there was a ~20 foot wind scoop that had passage on the climber's left side but was impressively massive.

Atop the saddle, it actually began to snow on us. On our map we'd marked topping out Logan, but without speaking we all knew that was out of the cards. It's time to GTFO. A light flurry, ominous clouds, and still miles of skiing ahead into the alders remained.

We were all a little surprised by how much exposed blue ice was visible on the Banded. Huh...it looks, icy. We tried to get a better vantage but the upper panel of the Banded rolled enough that we couldn't see much. Nick led us down the first roll, finding cold snow. More pow?! Not quite pow, but cold enough. The position amongst the glacial ice was wild, reminiscent of Shuksan and Alaska. What a position!

We continued down, etching our way trending skier's right through some patches of glacial ice with skiffs of snow on top, just enough to give passage. We continued skiing down to the glacial lake, the skiing just getting better and more consistent as we got lower. We skated across the lake, looking back at the Banded and in awe of what a position it was. That was wild!

From the outlet of the glacial lake, we found a nice sneak down to the west leading us into the Logan Creek drainage. The skiing was surprisingly excellent, 'all-day-corn' as Nick called it. Our friends Kyle M and Kyle J had skied down into this same drainage, but instead of going out Logan Creek they hooked a southerly turn towards the Fremont. We pushed northwards, down Logan Creek towards Fisher Creek.

The adventure began to ramp up as we pushed further and further into Logan Creek. Adamant to not take skis off, we sidestepped one ~100 foot slope as we were lightly rained on and overheating. Commonwealth Rules, we joked, referring to the Commonwealth exit in Snoqualmie Pass where we mandate you can't de-layer on the exit (for no logical reason). On the map we'd marked 'potentially cruxy section but looks like snow' on a ~500' slope around 5,000' to 4,500'. It looked like thick alder on satellite, with hopefully just enough snow to make it passable on skis. Hopefully...

Sure enough, after traversing through the woods for a bit, we found the snow slope, thick with alder but with seemingly enough tongues of snow to 'go'. We followed a tongue for a while, only to realize it terminated in a really, really dense thicket of alder. Over to our right, we spotted another tongue that seemed to go to the bottom. Guys, I think it's worth sidestepping over to it, Lane remarked. Oof, more sidestepping, Commonwealth Rules.

Poor Michael opted to try and fight his way through without sidestepping. Guys, I fucked up, we heard over the radio. We guiltily chuckled as we saw Michael completely entangled in alder, safe but on his own, with nothing we could do to help. We received a very justified middle finger, laughed it off, and pushed on to the end of snow.

Done with snow, we donned our trail runners that we'd been lugging around and bushwhacked for ~0.5 mile down to the Fisher Creek trail. The shwack' was never too bad and Michael led with his nose excellently down to the trail. We picked the trail up and followed it for around 2 miles to a horse camp, where we laid up for the night. We enjoyed a fire, dry ground, and the remainder of our food. The ski portion of the traverse was over, with 10 miles of hiking remaining. We'd pushed through a long day, with some rain, alder, and North Cascades shenanigans. A perfect blend, exactly what we sought.

Day 4 - Hike Out

At the end of Day 3 when we picked up the trail, we started the 'blowdown counter'. Our rules:

• A blowdown had to impede your stride to count.
• A grouping of blowdowns was 2 points.
• If you had to crawl to get through a blowdown, 2 points.
• If you fell getting through a blowdown, 3 points.

It took us ~4 hours to hike the 10 miles out Thunder Creek, with 103 blowdown 'points' counted. In all seriousness, though, the trail was in great shape and went just about as smoothly as we could have asked for. We reached our car just before noon, in a drizzle, enjoying that feeling of hitting the weather window 'just right' when it closes down on you after you're out of it.

We all enjoyed this route, which held a nice balance of traverse travel and interesting skiing. The Wyeth and Banded Glaciers were the clear highlights for us, with the unknown nature of the Wyeth and the radical position of the Banded standing out. The hike out Thunder Creek really wasn't that bad and was a nice way to utilize a crappy weather day on the tail end of the trip.

Thanks Michael, Lane, and Nick for hauling the hogs around with me for a few days. I'm still amazed at how long Nick's speaker lasted on low battery mode.