August 12, 2006, Fryingpan Gl Whitman Crest

Last weekend Andru (aka Androolus) stopped just below the Fryingpan and this left him wanting more, so a repeat destination (partially) for him, first Fryingpan trip of the year for me. This time we had plenty of time to go higher. Summerland lot was almost full already at 9:15. Superb flower show, particularly on last switchbacks prior to Summerland. The route to the Meany camp that starts E of Summerland would have meant some steep talus and then steep snow. Andru assured me that there was an easier way via the cirque.

Indeed there was. Only took about 200 vertical feet or so of talus scramble, and even some of that avoidable if you got on the steep snow (which was still froze kinda hard, so we avoided it). Then ridge ran the eastern arm of the cirque until reached a pretty meltwater lake that sits atop one of the two large waterfalls that enter the cirque (the other fall is the one that flows from near the camps). Here we switched to snowboots/skins and continued up the glacier. No crevasses on this part at all. Only crevasses seen were those that form under Whitman Crest more toward the Tahoma side.

Trailed a trio of goats high on the glacier (there were tracks, and goat poop, everwhere). We reached Whitman Crest (actually the saddle just to the N of 9194) in six hours. Briefly contemplated dropping onto the top part of Whitman for a run, could have been reached with just a little talus travel, and looked pretty decent. We stuck with the known on the Fryingpan, and took one 1000' run on the fall line below that saddle to a point where cliffs separate Fryingpan from Ohanapecosh.  Snow here was nice, only slight cupping or other unevenness that could be blasted thru.


Andru roostertailin', Ohanapecosh Gl and Indian Bar far below


Goat tracks going up, tele turns going down

Back up, then down that same run as far as possible before needing to veer skiers left and get back on the ascent route. Flat part was nice too. It hadn't been that warm a day, so the snow was not sticky, only 1.5 inches or so was soft - perfect.



The run down the southern lobe that led to the meltwater lake was more cupped, and a little firmer too, but still fun. Then some booting to reverse the ridgerun, with some short snowpatch connections that could be run, and the final steep traverse back into the cirque. This last part the cups had now reached objectionable size, but it beats walking on talus. At the bottom of this slope we both noticed that the algae had substantially stained the bases of our boards red. Weird.

Superb evening light then for our hike out from Summerland. The trail part in the trees always seems to go on forever, but it's such a nice trail that you can just zone out and plod plod plod until mercifully you are done. We maximized daylight on this trip, reaching the car at just past sunset.

I like this method of getting onto the Fryingpan. It's maybe a little longer, but you don't have to run as far on the flatter parts of the glacier. It's more fall line, and would be particularly so if you could go straight down from the meltwater pond into the cirque (mostly melted out now, the kinda scary run Andru's friends did last weekend had a gap in it now too).

We finished the day by driving up to Sunrise Point, firing up the MSR for dinner, deployed some cool beverages, and slouched in lawnchairs to watch the Perseids. This proved to be a popular idea - at least 20 other cars were there too and there were lots of people driving the road, so probably even more stargazers at Sunrise. Saw two particularly nice ones, one of which oddly was dead opposite to the radiant. We stayed until the moon got high enough to really interfere with meteors (but it did cast a nice light on the Mountain that we observed as we drove down).

A few more photos @