August 12, 2012 - Eldorado Peak

Standard route up Eldorado creek to Roush basin

Eyes are heavy, stay alert. Probably the most dangerous part of the trip. Certainly the most dangerous part of the trip. Headlights streak by, distracting evening light on Whitehorse Mtn. Almost to the handrail of I-5. Driving 60 in the right lane, 9 & 3. Eyelids stretched open with surprising effort. Finally home and unpacking. Wet items left in backpack... images downloading. Quick edits and thrown into a preliminary time lapse. That's an odd green / red hue towards the horizon.

Erik, is that the aurora? Holy crap... that is the aurora. I've never seen the aurora.


The amazing weather allowed us to dream big for a full weekend of climbing with a lightweight camping setup. It was a natural choice to go for Glacier Peak - it has dominated the views of some of our other summit vistas. With the 36+ mile round trip on tap we were going to go light. Tarptent, single sleeping bag for the two of us, minimal gear, save for the tripod, shutter release, intervoltameter, camera and polarizer, of course. We even left both our spoons at home. That was unplanned lightweight travel.

As we drove north on I-5, however, doubt creeped into our plans, and the traffic slowed. Hasty calculations were made of how far we would get up the N. fork Sauk given our delayed arrival at the trailhead. Willingness to stumble in the woods at night by headlamp were probed subtly. Extrapolations to when we'd have to summit were made. As the traffic crawled along, we slowly convinced ourselves that another climb was in order. It didn't take long to choose the Queen of the Cascade river - the guilded one: Eldorado.

A quick stop at REI to snag a new map (no USGS quads... boo!) and Panera bagels (these are actually quite gross) and we were off to Marblemount to secure our permit and collapse for the evening.

In the morning we were up and out of camp and hiking up the steep climbers trail before the heat grew intense. The log crossing was straightforward once we found it, and we made solid progress uphill, though it was deceiving to check how many miles we had walked. 1 mile is a lot of work when you gain 1300'. The trail was easy to follow, though and we made our way up and onto the boulder fields. Some of these fields can be challenging when the large rocks constantly move underfoot. The majority of these rocks were solid and progress was fast. As the terrain flattened out at 5600' the snow started, and we followed the muddy bootpack towards the ridge on our left.

Nicole taking in the view towards Cascade Pass

Flowers separating boulder field 2 and 3

Trail above 5600'

Views back towards Johannesberg from the flats above 5600'

After lunch break atop the ridge we scrambled down into the Roush basin, along the moraine at the bottom and onto the Eldorado glacier. We filtered water here and roped up, despite most everything along our route looking quite sealed up. Nicole drove us up the first few rollers, and I took over towards the end and brought us up to the saddle just below 7733'. A quick traverse east around some impressive crevasse / icefall led to one last slope and then the large flat expanse of the Inspiration glacier. We quickly scouted out a flat spot with northerly views towards Eldorado for meteor viewing and set up camp. Dinner was hastily put down without the help of spoons... not the most convenient meal, but delicious none the less. Mountain house lasagna for the win.

Camp, Nicole and Eldorado

Hazy views towards Glacier peak. Likely from Cle Elum fires?

I setup the tripod and made sure to compose the shot before the light faded. Hazy conditions dominated most of the views, especially back towards Johannesberg and Glacier peak, but luckily were pretty clear looking towards Eldorado. Sunset was rather undramatic, with some minor coloring in the sky and no strong light appearing on any of the alpine rock faces around us. I laid down for a few hours waiting for the stars to come out in force.

Rising at 10:30, half an hour before my alarm, the stars were bright, the daylight gone, and the timelapse was ready to get started! It was very dark. f2/8 at 30" at ISO3200 dark. And that was metering at almost -2EV. That was a bit lower than I wanted, but decided I couldn't push the camera anymore, so let the settings ride. As luck would have it, the moonrise several hours later would help boost the light levels without dominating over the stars and meteors. I stayed up for a few hours watching several meteors, convinced that most were out of the field of view, or occurred in the several second lag between exposures. After running the first battery most of the way down, I swapped it out and hit the hay for the night. Shutter actuations were surprisingly calming to drift off to sleep with.

I woke several times during the night and swore more than 30" was passing without a noise, but I would hear the reassuring noise of the shutter at last, and went back to sleep, dreaming that the lack of wind would continue and no icy death would meet my camera.

Several hours before sunrise I woke and stopped the already blown out timelapse, snapped a few images of the early morning glow with the crescent moon, and the 60D and I both retired for a little bit more napping.

Early morning light beyond camp

The climb up the peak the next day went very well. A quick traverse across the Inspiration glacier and end around the east ridge led to the more heavily crevassed slopes along the east ridge of Eldorado. A few solid snow bridges were easily found and crossed. It was a lot of fun staring down into the depths of the glacier and seeing increasingly dark blue hues as you look down.

Camp, Glacier peak and 7733' from the climbing route

Largest crevasse on the climb low on the Inspiration glacier

Nicole, Moraine lake and Forbidden Peak

We stayed on snow the whole way up, and were soon ditching packs to go up the last knife-edge summit ridge. I ran the rope up and set up a quick belay to bring Nicole up. When we were there a 60m would have been perfect... our 50m was juuust short, but it was no problem as Nicole started following after I had the picket in for a little simul climbing.

Views to the NW from the summit. Baker and sisters visible

Nicole on the summit

Demonstrating kiwi coil action (without a real tie in) and the summit pyramid!

Summit views were incredible, and we were fortunate to share the summit with some folks from Sedro-Wooley whose peak naming abilities was impressive. I don't remember all we learned, but I know that Baker must be climbed soon (already knew that) and Black Peak ought to be bumped up the list too! Very cool looking peak.

Nicole on the way down

Instead of roping up on the way down we sought a bit of rocky scrambling to get past the biggest cracks, and then jumped back onto the snow for the walk back to camp. Breaking down in record time, we pushed off and headed downhill. Epic foot glissading conditions almost made up for the fact that we didn't have skis. Nicole enjoyed butt sliding as well. The snow was over all too soon, however, and we were on the boulder field, or while descending, the squat field. Foot down, squat, foot down, squat. Then the trail, which I think might have been less exhausting on the way up.

Ah, back to the trail.

Seeing the Cascade river was amazing, though, and while relaxing at the car, I felt lucky to be so close to such an amazing place. In August we climbed up to snowy glaciers and ascended a snow finger of a summit. Incredible.