Home > Trip Reports > August 2, 2014, Mount Pugh, Stujack Glacier

August 2, 2014, Mount Pugh, Stujack Glacier

8/2/14
19744
20
Posted by kcahrens on 8/3/14 10:34am
Decided to go up to Stujack Glacier. I scouted it out on a day hike a couple years ago on my way up to Mount Pugh. Left before sunrise to get to the trailhead around 7.

A beautiful sunrise


As I arrived at the trailhead, my car scared off a small black bear; just barely saw him running up the road before he darted off the road.

Looking up at Pugh from Metam Lake (more of a pond)


Got to Metam Lake around 8, started up Stujack Pass around 10 or so. After ditching my board and boots at the top of the glacier, I scrambled up to the summit. Good views of Glacier Peak, Baker, Eldorado Peak among many others peaks. I lucked out, had 2 or 3 thunder storms miss me, one went just north of me and one to the south.

After getting down from the summit, I boarded the Stujack Glacier. Snow was super hard (almost unridable), and somewhat sun cupped. Definitely not what I envisioned, and not worth packing my board over a mile vertical for, but hey, that's what august turns end up being most of the time. (I wouldn't recommend going up here, the quality of turns to amount of hiking ratio is way off.)

Looking down at the Glacier


After a couple turns, hiked back up and headed back to the top of the Glacier, then back down Stujack Pass. Got back to the car around 4 or so.

Another look at the Glacier


More Pictures, including a couple from the mudslide area on 530
Good report.  I'm afraid we will be seeing a few more of these...rough reports until snow falls.  Nice turns and cheers.

Cheers.





Nice job on scoping out an unusual route!

Nice work, man. I enjoyed browsing through the extra photos in the link.

The gully that you skied is striking feature! Due north facing, consistent pitch, relatively narrow, with an abrupt J-turn avy path curving down through the trees at the bottom.... fascinating.

If you're missing a small blue stuff sack, I scrambled down to the very tip of the glacier to scoop it up as I was hiking by on Sunday.  I thought it looked more like wind transported trash from up on the trail, but now I'm wondering if you dropped it where you may have sat down to ask yourself "now why did I drag my gear all the way up here?".  Anyway, if it's your's I'm happy to arrange a reunion.

For what it's worth, I actually looked at the glacier and wondered - ever so briefly - if it was worth a ski.  Nice report!

-Dave

I don't think it is mine... But I will double check my gear tonight, I still have unpacked my bag completely. Do you wanna post a picture of it?

I think that you did it right, by not bringing the ski's. It's a lot of weight to bring up!

-Kevin

Norseman-

Yeah I really wish it would have been softer and more rideable. It goes a long way down, I didn't go very far because of how hard it was. Wasn't worth the hike back up the glacier. Would have been if it were softer.

I might try and hit it earlier in the year next year. I've just got to wait long enough to forget how much of a haul up it is.

-Kevin

Looks like this...

Definitely not mine! Good looking out though!

Have been meaning to check out Pugh just as a hike. Also have been intrigued by the ski possibilities of that glacier, see a report on it every couple years. Mostly with the long damn ways for turns assessment. The glacier is occupying a slot that clearly shows the Straight Creek Fault, which would be kinda cool to see up close and personal, and according to a Hillmap overlay you could get almost 1800 feet vertical out of it? Just too bad it is so far up a typical start-from-the-valley N Cascades hike, and over the shoulder at that.

What did you figure the slope angle was, particularly at the entrance? Was it at all nervousness-inducing given that you're looking at 1800 feet of uninterrupted runout, and you said snow was pretty hard froze? Wondering if it's at a practical figlable angle (~25 degrees) or is steeper than that.

The slope is pretty steep. Getting from the trail to the glacier is a bit tricky too, lots of loose rock where I dropped in.

The snow was very very hard. Maybe if there was more sun it would have loosened up, but I doubt it.

As far as the angle? I'm sure it's steeper than 25°. I'm not sure exactly tho. That's one of those things that his hard to guess.

If it were softer, I would have went to the bottom, it would have been decently long run for where I was at too. Long story short: my only fear was the concrete like snow.

-Kevin

author=wolfs link=topic=32125.msg135009#msg135009 date=1407349046]
The glacier is occupying a slot that clearly shows the Straight Creek Fault, which would be kinda cool to see up close and personal,

Here are two pics. According to Geol map (Haugerud & Tabor) the foreground is Shuksan greenschist (though it doesn't look like it in the pic) and the grey background is a much younger granitic rock. Would be worth going back to look at the rocks now. It is cool to stand with each foot in two dif geologic domains. If you're in to this kind of thing…  :)

Wow. That's some pretty cool background info. Totally makes sense with the layout of the mountain there.   

I don't know anyone who isn't into that kind of thing!

The very top is a bit steeper, but the rest is under 30 deg according to Cal Topo.  I recall thinking it looked fairly tame - if it was nice and corned up.  Sounds like it was a bit firm though...

Yeah. If it were corned up, maybe in June/July it would be a sweet run.

Where did you get that topo map? Looks a lot better than google maps. Haha!

Start here:

http://caltopo.com/map.html#ll=48.15208,-121.36988&z=14&b=f&a=sf

Play with it.  Learn it.  To the upper right are your base map and layer choices.  That's the fixed slope shading I have turned on over the USGS 7.5' series (though, in truth I usually use the US Forest Service as a base map since it is "cleaner".

Have fun.  Caltopo is a great tool.

Oh, and the "print" option lets you build PDFs too.

-Dave

I am hiking Mt. Pugh this weekend! Sounds like it isn't worth bringing the skis though. Thanks for the post.

Dave_R

Finally sat down and learned Caltopo.... That is an amazing tool... Thanks again!

You're welcome!

I trust you saw the "current fire activity" layer.  That one's gotten a lot of my attention lately.

...and apologies for the thread drift!

-Dave

Awesome. That's a great ski. Been a long time since I've skied there. Adventurous to ski there this time of year. Way cool. 

author=Dave_R link=topic=32125.msg135056#msg135056 date=1407954373]


I trust you saw the "current fire activity" layer.  That one's gotten a lot of my attention lately.

...and apologies for the thread drift!



No need to apologize for sharing the most useful mapping tool around!

Reply to this TR

12114
august-2-2014-mount-pugh-stujack-glacier
kcahrens
2014-08-03 17:34:24