June 19, Silver Star, N. Cascades

We began the epic day at 4:50 am under bluebird skies.  Skip, Justin, Cass, Kam and I  shouldered heavy packs and followed a climber's trail alongside of Silver Star creek (~3400 ft).  For the first 1500 ft, the trail was relatively easy to follow, with only an occasional tree to go around, climb under or over.  We reached the first talus field by 6 am, where we were able to see the first glimpse of our destination--Silver Star Mt., glistening in the sun.  After a short break, we continued on the trail, plodding through marshes, and eventually crossing the creek.  The primitive trail we were following suddenly petered out, and there was nothing left to do but shwack.  So schwack we did, through thick alder, underbrush, and heading up steep terrain.  

Finally we broke through tree line and came to Phase Two of the journey, the boulder field.  We could see our glacier just around the corner, seemingly so close...but we still had about 2+ hours of boulder hopping to do.  We traversed across the boulder field, which in a good year would normally still be covered with snow (says the wise Chris Cass). Occasionally we ran into small snow patches (loaded with vicious sink holes!), but nothing connected, so skinning was out of the question.  The boys were a bit ahead of me, but around 11:30 I finally reached a point where I could put my skins on (~6000 ft), and climbed up about 200 ft. where I met up with Kam.

Kam and I began skinning up towards the others.  The snow coverage was a bit thin--we had to weave around some rocks, and frequently we could hear the sound of water rushing beneath us...We made it up to a little saddle at 7000 ft. where we met up with Skip, Cass, and Justin.  The boys went up a bit higher (~7300? 7500?) while I took a little break at the saddle.  We made a point to turn around by 1 pm.  Up above, we could see the col of Silver Star, under a few more clouds than before (but not much), which would have to wait until next time.  

The 800 ft of vertical that I got and the 1000+ that the boys got was not the most glorious snow on earth.  Though it had been in the sun all day and was soft, the snow was unconsolidated and sloughy.  Skip was able to set off a small, slow slide.  Apparently beneath 7000 was better than what the boys skiied up above.  

We made it back down to 6000 by 2pm, where we took a little break and prepared for the long slog down.  The boulder hopping began again, however this time we were able to avoid all snow patches (no more sink holes, phew!), and even found a bit of a trail by staying lower than we had on the way in.  After the boulder fields came the shwacking, endless alder and thick brush, but this time we had the added delight of mosquitos!  As it is better to forget about un-fun times, I won't go into detail about the descent except to say that we did not get back to the car until a couple minutes before 7 pm.  

The work we do to find snow!  At least we had good weather and good company.  Besides some minor scratches and bug bites (well, in Justin's case they weren't so minor...), we came out alive without injury.  Way to go team!