July 4, 2007, – Fryingpan Glacier and Whitman Crest

Tomski from Colorado (334 consecutive months) and I did this same trip yesterday (July 6) and found the same conditions. The slope right below Whitman Crest was the best, the large steep roll at the base of Fryingpan Glacier very good, and I started down Tony's route into that cirque ("Goat Cirque"??) but chickened out with all the rocks and cracks below and traversed right to a more open line (I was skiing with my joke boots, which don't inspire a lot of confidence on steep exposed runs). The flatter areas were definitely a bit sticky - the kind of snow where it works best to always be turning a little so that the skis are not flat on the snow. That must be some kind of "suction" phenomenon due to all the liquid water in the snow?

The traditional route directly up to Meany Crest from Summerland looked like it might still go through on snow, but not for much longer and there are now a lot of rocks poking through at the very top of the slope.

Miraculously, there is now a new log bridge in over Fryingpan Creek, making that crossing a non-issue. Good thing too, because in the afternoon the creek was really up and the convenient crossing rocks were all under water. Even more amazing, a good deal of the first mile of the trail (in forest) had actually been raked! No needles, no cones, no little rocks. Glad that the NPS budget allows for such important trail maintenance activities.

Well that answers some questions for me. I got to Whitman Crest this morning at about 10:30am by climbing to Meany Crest from Summerland and saw all of your turns. I guess I should have checked here first. The Meany route doesn't offer a continuous ski anymore, it would require two short carries to ski down this way (one at Meany Crest, and another on the rocky ridge at the bottom of the bowl below it), although one could eek out a little more vert and ski almost to Fryingpan Creek on this route. After seeing your turns I decided to follow your route and explore some new, to me anyway, terrain. I skied down just before 11am and the snow was nice corn, only minor sloughing on some of the steeper sections. I had one short carry, just about 20 feet across a rocky ridge, trying to follow where you all had skied. Beautiful blue sky day, not too warm, and the wind was pretty slight. I saw one skier heading up the trail on my way out. I don't think we tracked it out too much for him.

Charles - "Goat Cirque" is a pretty good name. I saw a herd of 21 in there last summer. None this time though, but there were footprints on the glacier!