October 28, 2016, Inter Glacier

video if you want to skip the below



The Inter Glacier served up stellar conditions on Friday. Conrad and I left the campground at 9am, and hiked in trail shoes to Glacier Basin. Beyond there, skinning was reasonable. We encountered another party of three here.



We opted to stay right and skin along the (lateral?) moraine rather than play in the riverbed.





Low clouds were rolling through all day, creating moody alpine scenes, but bluebird was the theme. We encountered fresh snow around 6500ft, and by 8k, it was boot top. Slopes above 8500 were slightly wind-affected, more so on the Eastern side of the IG. The last storm seemed to cool off and leave a right-side-up snowpack, that was well bonded to the rain crust layer below. There was a thin windslab on top in places, but was not reactive at all.







We reached steamboat prow around 130, pleasantly surprised by the calm wind, and by how much snow is stacked on the upper mountain! We dropped in around 2pm, and chased our long shadows through dreamy pow down to 8800. With the conditions so nice, and the day so young, we decided it would be rude not to go back for seconds.





The lone other party dropped in while were grinding up the last 200 ft. (Nice to chat with you guys if you are on here!) The sun had left the NE slopes by the time we were shredding our second lap, but the snow was just as nice. At 8600 we traversed hard right towards Ruth. I hate traversing pow, but it was a means to an end.



A quick transition and skin saw us at the top of Ruth looking down some of the best snow of the day. After properly shredding the pow down Ruth's north side, and stumbling around in the dark for a few minutes, we found the light - one of the many chutes leading to Glacier Basin.

The good snow ended abruptly around 6500, where a savage refrozen breakable crust interspersed with rock and running water took us down to the trail. After that it was tennis shoes on, and safety first back to the car. We donned headlamps for the last 10 minutes of walking.

I have always wanted to ride the Inter Glacier during this narrow window in the fall when the road is open, and the snow is good up high. Weather, snow, and trail conditions could hardly have been better this day, and I feel lucky to have been there to enjoy it all. This was Conrad's first trip to the IG, so I think he was stoked too.