May 20-21, 2018, Eldorado

Eldo has a deserved number of prior reports, so this is meant to be a late-season condition update. Like many backcountry decisions, we were drinking at a bar outdoors and met an adorable Greyhound named Eldo, who helped us narrow down our plans from a handful of options.

We enjoyed a rain-free Saturday, dry river crossing on logs, snow-line at 4200' and able to skin easily to high camp. The glide crack at the base of the western ridge at 6000' is unfortunately just long enough to require 10 feet of dry booting on rock. We roped up for the glacier to high camp but the glacier is still well-filled. Enjoyed an epic sunset at 7200', capped off by Rainiers and Top Ramen.

Sunday morning, we awoke to sun and clouds at our altitude. Made the hour climb to the summit off rope, hugging the ridge. There is a small crevasse open around 8200'. The summit ridge was exciting as expected but easy to manage. We carved a ledge about 10 feet below the summit around 7:30AM and skied 4500' back to the boulder field. Easy to manage crust for the first 500 feet, then quickly turned to corn which we enjoyed back to the ridge gap at 6000' (there are a couple glide cracks opening at steep roll overs as expected). From there, we enjoyed some mush and chowder, dodged a few waterfalls, and made our way back to the wonderful (sarcasm) boulder field. Eldo totally lived up to expectations!