| Met up with dkantola and his friend Vincenzo at Timberline and started up about 1:30 am. Made Illumination Saddle by 4:30. Roped up and descended/traversed across the Reid Glacier to the far left side of the bergschrund where there is a small snowbridge. Once across that, we unroped and worked our way up the gullies. Lots of small ice falling but nothing too big although a few times there were some pretty loud cracks on my helmet.
In an effort to avoid the gullies with the most icefall we went through some pretty narrow openings, one with what I would call 4th class mixed rock/ice. Some steep traverses were necessary too but it was so sweet when we popped up on top into the sunshine and got to walk that ridge over to the summit. Overall it only took us about 8 and 1/2 hours to summit. Then we enjoyed the summit sun and had an awesome glissade down from Crater Rock.
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Cascade Volcanoes