May 28, 2006, Inter Glacier, MRNP

StevieD, Ryan, Hayes and I drove to the White Rive CG on Saturday night with the goal of an early start up the Inter Glacier, and possibly beyond, for Sunday.  As we drove Saturday night, the rain seemed to get harder and harder the closer we got to the park.  We woke up to huge snow flakes mixed with rain - basically nasty wet uninspiring weather - so we drank coffee.  The rain slowed down to a light drizzle by the time we finally motivated at around 7am.  We walked to the trailhead uncertain about the snow and weather conditions we would find up higher.  We were able to skin from the trailhead...with about 10000000 ski carries over small creeks and melted out sections of the trail.  The weather continued a pattern of on again off again (kind of like our skis) light rain until we reached Glacier Basin where fog was added to the mix and the rain turned to small snow pellets.  We continued on up the Inter Glacier. 

As we started up the glacier we came upon a couple of climbers on snowshoes.  Then a group of two snowboarders and a skiier descending through some rock bands to climber's right shouted warnings of avy danger.  We continued up the Inter Glacier.  About 500 feet higher, on the first steep section, a group of four skiiers with huge packs were descending.  We headed to the side of the basin to get out of their descent path.  They traversed the entire slope above us, not cool given all the new saturated snow in the top foot of the snow pack.  They continued to traverse back and forth across the glacier as they descended.  They told us they couldn't find the way from the top of IG down to Camp Sherman because of poor visibility.  We continued up the Inter Glacier.

We didn't see anyone else as we continued to climb to about 9200 feet, a few fundred feet below Steamboat Prow.  The weather cleared just enough to provide inspiring views down to the Emmons Glacier and across to Little Tahoma.  Our legs were tired from a long slog through heavy snow, and the visibility was as good as it had been all day, so we decided it was time to descend.  The picture below is of Ryan at our high point.  If you look closely, you can see Little Tahoma through the fog behind him.

The ski down was Cascade "spring powder" of varying density/saturation ranging boot top to knee deep.  Tired legs and poor visibility made for numerous face plants on the descent.  Nonetheless, the skiing was FUN and memorable.  Steve has a few pictures of the descent that maybe he'll post?  The snow high on the glacier was reasonably stable given all the moisture in the upper snowpack from the recent weather.  Most of my ski cuts produced no results.  There were a few sluffs here and there and a small three inch slab release on a steepsection at about 8000 feet.  As we neared the bottom of the glacier, the snow became much heavier and grabby.  There were a few natural wet slides coming down chutes from Mount Ruth (I think?) in to Glacier Basin.  The hike/ski/hike/ski back out to the trailhead involved lots more ski carries.  Eventually we were opening beers and celebrating the great big day we had in the face of less than inspiring weather.