Herein is the story of the much anticipated climb of Eldorado Peak. I’d been looking forward to the fabled snow arete for a long time. Plus, a chance to get out into the North Cascades is always exciting. Ken arrived in Seattle late on Friday night. I was surprised, but we stuck to our original plan of going to bed right away instead of playing ping pong and the usual goofy activities before heading out to the mountains. We did though; we left for the Marblemount Ranger Station early on Saturday. The forecast was good and the weather looked clear, a sharp contrast from our soggily thwarted attempt on McMillan Spire. At the Marblemount station, the ranger informed us that the river was running high and the log crossing featured a 30 degree pitch on it. We both started getting a big nervous about the log crossing! Some call this the crux of the climb. We drove out to the road and got a peak now and then through the thick vegetation at the north fork of the Cascade River; indeed it looked swift. Ah, the moment of anticipation!
We hiked down the road from the parking lot and found the trail easily enough. Soon enough we were at the log crossing. It looked awful! It was very high up…then fortunately we realized the that part in the air was a different section of the trunk that we didn’t have to climb. Apparently, a brand new tree fell across the original log this year, making the crossing much trickier. The original log looked really easy. Fortunately, the new log is only utilized during the first third of the crossing and isn’t near 30 degrees…more like 15. There was another party here on the way down – an Alpine Ascents party. The first member of the team sat down and scooted his way down the steep log. Then, he had to jump from the dirt encrusted roots to the shore…he ended up face planting! The other team members let Ken and I go next. We ascended the log standing very carefully to the part where we downclimbed to the old log. (We ended up scooting our way down too on the way back) The old log is a very simple crossing. I can’t believe people used to make a big deal out of it. Shortly after crossing the river, we had to dodge branches and logs here and there until we got out onto a good climbers trail.
The trail ascended steeply to the left of Eldorado Creek. We didn’t mind; we both knew that we were lucky to have a trail and were grateful! We passed the time with the usual discussions and were happy to see that we were moving pretty quickly. Soon enough we came to the edge of a large slide alder patch. The trail ascended steeply to the left through some trees with cascading root systems to the entrance of a talus field marked with cairns. Also, the weather wasn’t quite as clear as we were hoping. By this time, we had ascended to the level of the clouds and were climbing in a thin mist. At least the cloud cover kept us cool. The talus field led through a notch of slide alder along a steep and muddy trail to a second talus field. This field had snow in it and at first it was tedious to cross at the beginning. We poked through several times. We eventually got on to more solid snow and made our way though forest and emerged to see the obvious small ridge that divides Eldorado and Roush basins. We followed a boot path to the top of the ridge.
At the top of the ridge, we took a break (there was a group of four bivy sacks near the spot where we needed to downclimb) before making the downclimb into the gully that would land us on Eldorado Glacier. At the base of the gully, there was a small moat that was easily negotiated by simply jumping. We then began the final slog up Eldorado Glacier to Inspiration Glacier and our campsite.
The views from the Eldorado Glacier were great, but fraught with wispy swirling clouds. We got a couple of clear views of the Triad, a peak we considered climbing, but that was to be all we would see of the Triad on this trip. We headed up the boot path and made our way to the Inspiration Glacier. I gave out a triumphant yell as I topped out on the level part of the glacier. I was able to see another potential objective: Klawatti Peak. It looked quite doable from this spot which would be our campsite. The only questionable thing was the weather. We got one view of the remote basin housing Moraine Lake to the east (right) but we were never able to see Forbidden Peak until the last day, and even then just the outline really. But, the peaks looked awesome and we were inspired. Soon after, clouds enveloped our camp.
We spent the rest of the afternoon getting everything ready, securing the tent, cooking, and so on. We went to bed with wind singing in the background. I think we both fell asleep really fast. We awoke the next morning to more clouds. We both looked out at different times and upon seeing the weather, went back to bed. Maybe it would clear up later on. I can’t remember what time we got up, but it was really late! Something like 9 o’clock. There was still absolutely no visibility. An hour or two later, Ken went back to sleep and I entertained myself by working on map and compass skills for two hours or so! The rest of the time we played the peak game that Aidan had taught me – a simple little thing where one person names a mountain and the other person has to name a mountain that starts with the letter of the last letter of the previous peak. The process repeats. This game eats up a lot of time, surprisingly. We adapted it to other things as well like Lord of the Rings. On a whim, I looked out and to my excitement, saw that the cloud had cleared somewhat. By this time it was about 3 in the afternoon.
“Dude! It’s clear.”
“What do you think? Peaks?”
“Yeah, now’s a good time. Peaks.”
“OK, peaks. Let’s get ready.”
“Awww! Peaks!”
We were ready quickly. We roped up and headed off. The route from this point was straightforward. We headed for a small notch to the left of the last point of rock on the east ridge. We then turned left and began climbing the long ridge. Shortly thereafter, the clouds encircled us again. No visibility. Bits of the ridge would open up now and then only to reveal that we had further to go but the weather only eventually worsened. We pressed on. Ken’s old boots had started breaking down and his feet were soaked and getting cold. We pressed on though. The snow was quite deep and it was hard to not break through up to our knees. Still, there was no need for snowshoes on this trip. Soon enough we arrived at a junction. We capped out on a small ridge and to the left, the snow arete appeared. Alright! We started up. The exposure was great but not as scary when we could only see maybe twenty feet in front of us. We could make out the very precipitous drops around us: maybe 60 degrees to the left and 70 to the right! Man, if only we could see more! It had started snowing and sleeting on us as well. The arete isn’t too painfully long – about 200 feet. We were on the summit before we knew it!
We had to get down quickly though since Ken’s feet were getting really cold now. I think one of his toenails fell off as a result – way to hang in there to get the summit! Anyway, the descent was quite sloppy. We bounded and bashed our way through the slushy snow and jumped into the tent. We were happy to make the summit but a little sad we didn’t have any views. Ah well, these things happen in the Cascades. We did entertain the idea of climbing the peak again (it didn’t take long at all from camp) if the weather cleared. We had another good meal and turned in, playing a few more word games. This night was much more windy and snowy than the first and we awoke to a rime-coated tent! The weather was still poor. We waited an hour or so and began breaking down camp. Soon after, the weather started breaking and we got a little sunhit. We had our best views of Eldorado Peak yet!
We only briefly considered climbing the peak. Ken’s feet were really cold and both of his socks were damp. We decided to head down instead. We were able to glissade a decent amount of the route. One very interesting part of the trip, and quite scary, was when we decided to glissade through the trees. We had done this before several times, most notable on Buffalo Mountain in the Gore Range of Colorado. Things were a little different this time. Ken headed off first down a steep hill that eventually smoothed out before hitting another hill. I followed and picked up speed fast. A little too fast because I wiped out and had to start again. As I crested the next hill, I saw Ken yelling something at me. I finally heard him: “Stop!! Stop!!” But it was too late: I saw the 10 – 15 foot waterfall yawning before me with the water cascading underneath a hole in the snow at the base. Before I could even think, I turned on my right side trying to veer out of its path. I moved out of the way enough to where I flew over the falls to the right and hit the lip of the snow, bounced forward on my stomach and landed on top of Ken. Ken hadn’t fared as well and actually hit the cascading water on rock but fortunately catapulted onto the snow at the base of the falls. We both lay still for a while and then expressed our gratitude that we escaped that without any harm, only a small cut on my thumb from my ice axe, I guess.
Well, we were done with glissading and made a point to learn from our mistake and not glissade to casually in the Cascades which are riddled with waterfalls and streams. We hit the talus field on the way down which was much more treacherous on the descent than ascent. We actually did end up slowly glissading parts of it to prevent ourselves from punching through! We were finally out of the snowy part of the talus and slowly made our way down the steep muddy trail to the second talus field and finally back to the comfortable trail. The descent was easy enough but we had one last crux: crossing the north fork of the Cascade River. It turned out not to be as bad as we were expecting. We just needed to scoot on our rear ends slowly and that was all there was to it.
