May 9-13, Dakobed Traverse
5/9/16
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From Monday, May 9 to Friday, May 13 my brother Jack and I skied the Dakobed Traverse plus Glacier Peak. We followed the route described in Martin Volkens guidebook. Conditions were generally excellent. Oddly, just as we were reaching Boulder Pass Monday evening, a snowstorm blew in. Wasn't expecting that. Here is a picture of Jack climbing toward Boulder Pass:
On Tuesday morning under clear skies, we continued around toward the Clark Glacier.
We climbed Clark and bypassed Lauhna. The Butterfly Glacier skied excellent after Monday evening's snow. We camped Tuesday night on the col E of Neyah Point. We slept in Monday morning and were rewarded with a few thousand feet of corn skiing down to Moth Lake. (If you look closely, you can see our tracks down the Butterfly Glacier in the bkgd.)
Just above the outlet of Moth Lake, we veered skiers left onto north facing slopes east of Tenpeak and picked our way down to 6000 to traverse under the north face of Tenpeak. All the gullies were still snow filled, but they were pretty torn up with slide debris, limbs and rock fall. We passed a few marmots that were like, "what the eff are you doing here?" Below the N Couloir we paused and looked up. The top looked smooth, but the bottom was pretty beat up. We both wanted to ski it ... just not climb it. In the end, we bypassed it. I regret that decision now. But I say that sitting at my dining room table with a cup of coffee and a full nights sleep in a bed. Its probably best not to judge too harshly decisions made to pass on extra skiing.
The NF of Tenpeak dumps a lot of rockfall onto that apron at 6000' so we didn't linger. Here's a shot looking up the Honeycomb Glacier:
We camped on the divide between the Honeycomb and Suiattle Glaciers and enjoyed an excellent sunset.
On Thursday we climbed Glacier Peak. On the way up we ran into the only other people we saw on the trip: a group of five skiing Glacier in a day. Strong work. Also, as luck would have it, we encountered the only cloudy weather of the whole trip. Seriously, all Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon after we enjoyed excellent, clear views of the summit. Here's what we got:
Oh well. We scrubbed plans to ski the Cool Glacier Headwall and picked our way down the SW gully we climbed. Skiing was excellent on the lower Cool and Gerdine Glaciers once we got under the cloud deck. Spent the afternoon napping back at camp.
It's rare and worth cherishing, I think, those days in the alpine when you make camp early and spend the afternoon loafing. I find a special satisfaction comes with just sitting there -- listening to the wind, watching the sun cast shadows that roll across the white expanse of glaciers, and feeling the warm rock on my back and the sun on my face.
On Friday we hiked out via the White River trail. We were able to ski to about 4500' on Lightning Creek before the alder shenanigans began. Getting from our transition point to the east side of Thunder Creek took some doing. There was some tree climbing:
Some backwards downclimbing:
And some creek crossing cowboy style:
All in all, the price of admission was worth the cost.
On Tuesday morning under clear skies, we continued around toward the Clark Glacier.
We climbed Clark and bypassed Lauhna. The Butterfly Glacier skied excellent after Monday evening's snow. We camped Tuesday night on the col E of Neyah Point. We slept in Monday morning and were rewarded with a few thousand feet of corn skiing down to Moth Lake. (If you look closely, you can see our tracks down the Butterfly Glacier in the bkgd.)
Just above the outlet of Moth Lake, we veered skiers left onto north facing slopes east of Tenpeak and picked our way down to 6000 to traverse under the north face of Tenpeak. All the gullies were still snow filled, but they were pretty torn up with slide debris, limbs and rock fall. We passed a few marmots that were like, "what the eff are you doing here?" Below the N Couloir we paused and looked up. The top looked smooth, but the bottom was pretty beat up. We both wanted to ski it ... just not climb it. In the end, we bypassed it. I regret that decision now. But I say that sitting at my dining room table with a cup of coffee and a full nights sleep in a bed. Its probably best not to judge too harshly decisions made to pass on extra skiing.
The NF of Tenpeak dumps a lot of rockfall onto that apron at 6000' so we didn't linger. Here's a shot looking up the Honeycomb Glacier:
We camped on the divide between the Honeycomb and Suiattle Glaciers and enjoyed an excellent sunset.
On Thursday we climbed Glacier Peak. On the way up we ran into the only other people we saw on the trip: a group of five skiing Glacier in a day. Strong work. Also, as luck would have it, we encountered the only cloudy weather of the whole trip. Seriously, all Wednesday afternoon and Thursday afternoon after we enjoyed excellent, clear views of the summit. Here's what we got:
Oh well. We scrubbed plans to ski the Cool Glacier Headwall and picked our way down the SW gully we climbed. Skiing was excellent on the lower Cool and Gerdine Glaciers once we got under the cloud deck. Spent the afternoon napping back at camp.
It's rare and worth cherishing, I think, those days in the alpine when you make camp early and spend the afternoon loafing. I find a special satisfaction comes with just sitting there -- listening to the wind, watching the sun cast shadows that roll across the white expanse of glaciers, and feeling the warm rock on my back and the sun on my face.
On Friday we hiked out via the White River trail. We were able to ski to about 4500' on Lightning Creek before the alder shenanigans began. Getting from our transition point to the east side of Thunder Creek took some doing. There was some tree climbing:
Some backwards downclimbing:
And some creek crossing cowboy style:
All in all, the price of admission was worth the cost.
Looks like and awesome trip. How broken up was the Clark Glacier?
The Clark was easy to negotiate.
We did it a few years ago and came out Indian Creek. Perhaps a bit more civilized than Lightning Creek/White River. One of my favorite trips ever.
Nice Work!
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