Home > Trip Reports > July 28-30, 2012, Glacier Peak

July 28-30, 2012, Glacier Peak

7/28/12
WA Cascades West Slopes Central
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Posted by PS44 on 8/6/12 9:36am
Sorry for delay in producing this report but I am adding a GPS track here so it may be useful for future reference.

Started on 7/28 from the NF Sauk River trailhead (the entire access by car to the TH just opened a week ago after culvert repair) and made a camp on White Chuck Glacier that evening.  Crossing point of the crest between White River drainage and White Chuck Glacier is obvious from the GPS track €“ essentially through the last saddle from the Foam Creek trail (I believe) traversing from its White Pass junction with PCT.  It was not so obvious while up there, but at least I could ski a nice snow slope down from the crest.  The White Chuck €œglacier€ was essentially still one large snowfield.  On day 2, I started toward Glacier Gap but crossed the ridge a bit to the climbers left (north of it) on a nice gradual snow slope with some old ski tracks.  Once on Suiattle Glacier, I followed the Gerdine ridge quite to the climber€™s right and picked the most gradual way up, giving a wide berth to the Disappoitment Peak side which seemed to throw off quite a number of large rocks.  I then rounded left the D.P. on Cool Glacier through easily negotiable crevasses, and continued to the pumice ridge connecting the D.P. and Glacier Peak proper. Left my skis on the snow and walked up the ridge and then booted a final short steep snowfield to the top.  Here I met a skier who skied down the steep snow almost from the summit and then followed ridge to D.P. and skied its SE wall.  Quite impressive.  Later a larger group of skiers showed up on Cool Glacier.

Returned to the camp, packed up and retraced my footsteps over to the White Pass and to the campsites just below it, where I spend a quiet night. On the third day I made the arduous hike out to my car at the trailhead.

Note that the GPS track is partial; it does not contain mostly straightforward segments of the NF Sauk River trail.  Overall snow conditions were great, I can imagine snow melted quite a bit since then.

Hillmap link with GPS track is here:

Hillmap

Adding  a few more pictures.

I see you did make it. Congratulations!


Thanks for the report. It would have been useful for my son and me during our climb last weekend (August 3-4).

We didn't bring skis. There is still a lot of snow in the White Chuck basin, but it's going fast with all the warm weather now. During our climb, the passage from the Gerdine Glacier to the Cool Glacier was negotiable without crampons, but the snow was getting thin, so you might need crampons by now. The summit snow fingers are melting fast and the snow face on the SE flank of Disappointment Peak is no longer continuous. We encountered no skiers during our trip but lots of climbers.

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july-28-30-2012-glacier-peak
PS44
2012-08-06 16:36:13