Glacier Peak

Did a leisurely 3-day tour of Glacier Peak over memorial day weekend as a crew of six.

Day 1: Leave TH a little after 10am to make camp around 5pm. Cruising the long angle trail through the forest was a breeze and went by fast. Hiking the switchbacks through an old slide path was brutal in the hot and stagnant air down low. We put on skis around 4,800ft and took the winter route into the basin between White Chuck and White Mountain rather than continuing along the PCT and summer route. The south facing ridge was soft in the afternoon at ~6000 feet and we triggered multiple small D1 wet loose slides. Rather than continue on to the camp past marmot knob, we camped in the basin on the North side of White Mountain (48.04871, -121.14611) where we found flowing water. Key beta: We should have shot directly for the ridge line when the trail opens up at ~4,600 feet rather than continuing on the trail and the switchbacks, only to make our back over to the open face. This would have avoided some bushwacking and been and easy skin.

Day 2: Leave camp at ~5:30am, summit at 11:10am, and back at camp at ~2:30pm. The skin to cool glacier was straightforward and quick. The snow was well consolidated, soft on top, and easy to skin after a warmish night. However, there was a lot of collapsing and widespread whoomphing on low angle, south facing terrrain on the Gerdine Glacier between 8,000 and 9,000 feet. Wind was gusting at the top of the cool glacier, so we put on crampons and booted to the summit. Dropping the summit at around 11:30am we had smooth silky turns down the Cool and Gerdine Glaciers. A slab avalanche had occurred on south side of Disappointment Peak during our summit push. After skiing glacier gap, it was a warm and sunny skin back to camp.

Day 3: Leave camp at 7:20am and back to the car at 12:40pm. We woke up in a cloud and packed up our damp camp. Our skis were wet and covered in pollen from the day before. Most of us had skin failures and used voile straps to keep skins on our skis to make it back into the North Fork basin. It was pretty brutal. We did the surprisingly fun 1,600 foot ski from the ridge line down the glade to a short distance from the trail. It required some route-finding through the gaps and alder at the bottom. After the ski we did a quick jaunt to the trail at 4,600 ft and hike back out to beer and pizza at River Time Brewing.

Overall long, but beautiful tour.