July 17, 2005, ghost of the lyall glacier

Combined, Cass and I inadvertently left at least 25% of our gear in Seattle, a fact that became increasingly evident the further we traveled north Saturday night.  Notable items included my camera and maps.  Fortunately, we had boots and skis, as well as a Gazetteer and a Beckey guide, providing us all we really needed and needed to know for our trip to Frisco Mountain.  The locale was the Casshole's suggestion; his first time to the peak a number of years ago had left a distinct impression: he wished he had skis.

Aiming to right the wrongs of yesteryear, we set out from Rainy Pass up the eastern route of the Maple Pass loop trail just after 7:00 Sunday morning.  The well-maintained trail was fast, bringing us up ~1400' to treeline in just over an hour.  We followed the ridgetop about half its distance, then dropped 450' down into the drainage separating our ridge from Frisco.  Rather than tackling the northern ridge directly, we side-hilled a slope of loose talus beneath rather prominent features, crossed two streams, and made our way to an old moraine of the Lyall Glacier.

While we had plans to scramble to the top of Frisco, the objective of the trip was actually the Lyall.  The Beckey guide and the Gazetteer each show the Lyall as a prominent body in the basin beneath Frisco's peak.  These documents were supported by Cass' recollections.  Outdated maps, however, hid that which was revealed to us: the Lyall is all but gone.  What once was a sizeable glacier has been reduced to a small, melting block of ice above a small meltwater lake in the deepest part of the basin.



We continued up the basin hoping for lines connecting the few fingers of snow to one another, but found in this we were a month too late.  Alas, we again found evident the plight of the patch skier that is me.

After scrambling up Frisco, we returned to the col, donned skis, and set about to hit as many patches as we could find on the way down.  In total we found five, totaling a little over 800' vertical.  And for two of those you didn't even have to take off your skis, just a short scramble over some choss piles.  Not bad.

What lacked in quantity was made up for in quality.  The snow was brilliant.  It had set up over night, leaving us 2-3" of corn over a firm base.   Though they looked menacing, you couldn't even feel the suncups and runnels.   All in all, it was a brilliant July ski day, despite the late August conditions.  It once again proved you don't need snow to have a good ski day.  While this no doubt makes sense to you, dear reader, you would be surprised to learn just how many people don't understand...

Fun Factor:  800' ski descent / 4000' ft ascent = .2  (better than average!)