July 4-5, Glacier Peak

July 4-5, 2009 Glacier Peak

The newly repaired NF Sauk Road opened on July 2, just in time for the hot holiday weekend.  It's currently in great shape all the way to the NF Sauk trailhead.  We arrived to a swarm of mosquitoes so we quickly packed, chatted with another group of climbers also headed for Glacier and started up the trail at 9:45 AM.  It was encouraging to see recent work on the first few miles of the trail and a prepared/surveyed location for what we assume will be a bridge across Red Creek.  Finally, 6 years after the 2003 floods the roads and trails are starting to be repaired.

The first few miles of the trail are through stunning old growth forest.  Huge cedar trees block nearly all sunlight to the forest floor and provide for cool, shaded travel.  My partner, Jim, is an ecologist/botanist and knows just about everything one can imagine about the forest.  Any question or curiosity you may have about something you see?  BAM, he tells you the answer and then something else interesting but related.  What to take a guided tour?  Just ask him to point out interesting things as you walk.  His enthusiasm for the forest is contagious and made what might otherwise be the drudgery of carrying an overnight pack with skis and ski boots up a valley for miles and miles just float by.

Then we exited the forest into an open slide path and started to climb.  Immediately upon stepping out of the shade the temperature seemed to increase about 30 or 40 degrees.  No more magical groves of trees or fairy tale scenes.  Just a steep trail carved out of over the head brush into a sunny avalanche path.  Higher along the climb the trail switchbacks through some recent avalanche blowdown.  No need to suck all the pleasure out of the first set of contortions over, under and around the first set of trees -- there's another set just past the next switchback as the trail traverses back through the mess.

Eventually the trail enters the sub-alpine meadows as it makes a long ascending traverse to White Pass.  The flowers here were spectacular and the scene classic Cascades with the snow covered Monte Cristo range and Sloan Peak in the background.  It was glorious, and one cannot help but to feel uplifted just walking into it.

Fearing a tedious traverse across steep heather, I was excited to see a well defined climbers path traverse from White Pass to the small pass giving access to the White Chuck basin.  We made the traverse in our trail shoes and kicked steps up the final few hundred feet to the pass.  Here we finally switched to skis and got our first views of the mountain, only 12 miles and 4500 ft of ski packing since leaving the car.

The traverse to Glacier Gap is long and tedious.  Even though we gained 1400 ft to our camp site the traverse is so long and gradual Jim was able to climb it on his skis without skins.  The traverse to Glacier Gap is also fascinating since nowhere in the Cascades is glacier retreat more apparent.  The northern lobe of the White Chuck has disappeared in our life time and the southern lobe as well as other nearby glaciers (Honeycomb) are rapidly retreating.  They leave behind an assortment of blue melt water pools, tarns and lakes as well as a heap of rubble that was thankfully snow covered.  We arrived at camp around 9 PM in time to enjoy the alpenglow.

We weren't in a hurry to leave camp the following morning since we expected (and got) a good freeze and didn't want to start the ski descent until 11 AM or noon.  We slept in, packed slowly and finally left camp near 7:45 AM.  The snow was just soft enough and the glacier low angle enough that we were able to use skins for almost the entire ascent except for the pumice ridge walk and final boot pack up from the Disappointment Peak col.  We didn't want to summit too early so we backed off the pace a few notches and stopped to chat with a couple groups of climbers heading down.  We also admired the ski tracks descending from Disappointment Peak and from the summit of Glacier directly to the Cool Glacier.  One of the groups we talked to said they were friends with the skiers.  I asked their names and they said "Hummel" and Kyle and that they had been out for a few days.  Nice turns!  Looking forward to hearing more about your trip.

We summitted sometime around 11 AM and lounged on top for a half hour or so before starting down.  We weren't up to the steep, mandatory schrud huck line Jason and Kyle had skied off the summit and chose a more moderate couloir to skier's right.  The snow was nicely corned on the steeper sections.  From the saddle we booted up over Disappointment Peak and made really nice turns down the south face to intersect the standard route.  Definitely a highly recommended variation to the normal route in good conditions.  The rest of the descent was enjoyable, consolidated corn.  The hike all the way out to the car was only moderately less fun then the hike in.  Once back in forest land the time seemed to float by again, minds contemplating the war being waged by hundreds of seedlings on a nurse log.