May 31, 2004, Fryingpan Glacier

With the forecast for predominantly dry and partly sunny afternoon, we set out for the Fryingpan Glacier. On the approach the continuous snow didn't start until after crossing Fryingpan Creek. This is a few feet less snow than the last two years in early to mid June. Also, the Fryingpan Creek bridge is washed out. The steep section just below the glacier, where we had to boot up, had about 1 meter of unconsolidated mush (I could shove my pole in that far without much resistance). No slide activity at all, for our outing, but some wet point slides occured the day before. The skinning up on the Fryingpan was nice, since we were alone, in fresh snow, and the sun was in and out. At about 8600-ft, just below the last slope up to Whitman Crest, we got socked in with 10-ft visibility and snow. After resting and waiting 45 minutes we took the 50-ft visibility window we had. The ski down was not too pleasant with poor visibility, snow/rain, and extremely heavy and wet unconsolidated snow. All the recent snow and rain has made for some deep wet mush, which was much more challenging for me than the more typical lower water content Cascade Cement. We put the ski's on our packs before crossing the Fryingpan Creek and hiked out in a steady rain.