| A long day on Sloan Peak Trip Report |
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| A long day on Sloan Peak   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Washington, United States, North America Lat/Lon: 48.04150°N / 121.3401°W Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 27, 2001 | Page By: tazz Created/Edited: Aug 29, 2005 / Object ID: 170396 Hits: 1644 Loading... Page Score: 86.49% - 3 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
Warning! this is a long TR because it was a long 16 hr day! [insert grin]
This is the first time I have been to the Glacier Peak Wilderness. WOW what did I wait so long for?
The plan was to climb Sloan Peak This peak is easily done in a day 11 miles rt and 6000' gain via the corkscrew route no problem...right? This mountain has all of the elements to make a great but tough climb. Brushy climbers path with river fords, dead fall areas across the path, bees, route finding, class II glacier travel, class 3&4 rock scramble. Well let me tell you This mountain kicked my ass I am pretty beat up right now.
The weather held out for us. It turned out to be a great day! Mark, Jeff and I met at the trail. We got a late start to begin with so that was a factor in our time issues of the climb. The elevation starts at 1900'. Head down the climbers path that lead you into a river valley. At a little over ½ mile is the first crossing of the river. The route is flagged but in the dark It is a different story getting through it. More about that later. You can find a sand bank to the right of the trail and get across with out getting a foot in the water. The second crossing one you can find a tree with an exposed root ball. With some class low class 5 moves (grin) across the root you have crossed. Then the last crossing is a ford. The water is so low this time of year to not cause problems. After we cross we sat and dried out feet off. Just after it took a picture of mark crossing I bumped the camera into the water. NO pics for this trip. BUMMER though it was a goner we tried it later in the day and it still didn’t work. But today it fired up YAHOO!
Around a 1000' there is a spot in the path that is taped off with a sign saying Bees next ahead.. Now I read on CC.com about this stump at the first major log crossing after the fords. But wasn’t sure of where it was. Who ever flagged it and put the sign there we will be forever grateful. We bushwhacked up around the dead fall area. We made good time up small switchbacks with 100s of trees and dead fall you climb over, under and through to 4800' where it comes out into the meadows and great views. We took a break here. This is where I found that my headlamps where not in my pack but on the seat of my truck. I had set them out to add to my pack cause I knew it would be a long day. Stupid stupid move. That was when we found out we only had two lights for three of us.
From here the path heads up a ridge running to the east. It ends up coming out in a saddle to the right of a. rock spur. We decided to take a more direct approach and headed off the path for some class 2/3 scrambling of slab. From the saddle we turned SW and head up the ridge.
This is when you can view the glacier ahead. Sloan glacier is very active right now. It was grunting & groaning the whole time we where there. Heard and saw a lot of ice fall. Large open crevasses through out the glacier. Then I noticed two climbers on the ice. Looked like they where dropping in and out of large crevasses. The guys got ahead of me and had stopped up at an entrance to the glacier. They where roping up when I arrived. As we where roping up the other two climbers where scrambling up the rock right next to the glacier and the a huge chunk of ice falls off right next to them. I would say maybe 25' away. Then they came up and joined us. They said they where trying to get through down lower but was hairy. After a quick chat and name exchange they headed up first.
There where fresh tracks headed up. We could not see from there what was beyond. I was concerned about a large crevasse up there that I saw from below. We headed up fallowing Chris & Erin tracks. Then is saw them headed back in our direction then I saw why. A huge bergschrund blocked the way. Large shaky flakes just ready to collapse. The tracks dropped right down in it though. There was no way any of the 5 of us where going to drop down in that. SHOOT I knew we should have gone to the upper shelf. We all turned back. We lost over an hour on this little detour. But it was still fun Once down is when we had to remove equipment to gain the rock step above. The path we picked was a lot more direct than any other choice. Strait up 50' of rock band. One small section had a class 4 exposed area. The last move over the lip was a class 5 move with no holds. Then we topped out on a shelf just below the summit block. This is the spot we had to decide weather we should continue or not. It was getting late and we knew the decent was already going to be done in some dark. Chris and Erin had already headed up the glacier and where not having any problems. So we decided lets do it, we where to close to turn back now and if worse came to worse we where all prepared for and emergency bivouac if it came to that. We headed up.
The first section is chopped up with crevasses. We had to maneuver around and through then we came upon a HUGE crevasse and skirted around it with no problem. Then came the skinny bridge but still a good comfortable thickness. Once across that you keep traversing up a small steep section and then it is down hill with no open canvasses and quick travel to the saddle. We unloaded all of our gear with a sigh of relief. Leaving our gear there we headed around the south side of the peak.
From the saddle there is a well defined climbers trail that traverse a shelf around to the west side of the peak. This is where my body decided it was going to shut down. What!!! I still had 800 feet to gain! I think between deflating and relaxing after glacier crossing and not eating enough I hit a wall. It was a tough climb for me from here on. As you hit the west side you turn right and start to traverse the west side of the peak. This leads to a section of class 3/4 scrambling up to the summit ridge. Once on the summit ridge it is a quick 3/4 exposed scramble across a knife edge to the summit. The view are just amazing. We hung out at the top for a awhile and chatted it up with Chris and Erin. They where such a nice young couple. Oh to be that age and that fast again. Then they headed off ½ hr or more ahead of us. It was hard to leave the summit will all that was laid before us but it was getting to be around 5. We knew we would have to get down into the trees and on the trail before dark. We figured it would take us maybe 5 hrs or so. NOT!
We headed down and crossed the glacier. By this time the lighting and the views where just getting better and better. We watched the sun go down as we descended the ridge down into the trees.
At least we got off the rock before dark. We still had 4.5 miles to go in the dark. We knew what spots where going to give us trouble though...downfalls, bushwhack around the bees, and the river crossing maze. Jeff and I did not have lamps but Mark had his lamp and a small flashlight. Jeff is the one who went without a light. I had the little flash light and mark had his head lamp. We all stumble back down the trail in the dark. We only lost the trail a few times and had to spend some time finding our way across all the blow down and dead fall areas. The bee section came up and I told the guys I was going to go through instead of the bushwhack. I figured the bees would be resting and it was better to get a couple of stings than get lost up in the trees in the dark. I climbed over the hat someone put over the nest to mark it. Onto a log with a 8' drop into blackness. I jumped. and Landed. Using Marks light from his headlamp Jeff fallowed. Once he was on the tree Mark said BEES and turned and ran back. This left Jeff without light on top of this log. Jeff did not have a pleasant landing off the log but was fine and made it across. We stood down on the trail as Mark bushwhacked his way up and over to us. Now the only obstacle in the way was the river crossings.
We arrived at the crossing and I just went through with my boots on. The boys went barefoot. Well so far so good. We got to the second crossing with the class five tree root climb. Crossed it no problem. Two down. Then we headed out and thought we where on the right path but when we arrived at the next crossing nothing looked familiar. So we took another path to see if we could find the crossing. I came around a corner and looked down and said What the F...
We had done a loop back to the class five tree root crossing. By this time we where all tired and just wanted out if here and knew if we could cross this one spot we would be home free. So we went back out and just took all the turns opposite the ones we took before on our loopy loop. We found and crossed the last one. WE MADE IT!!!! . Its funny how much darkness slows down a descent.[insert grin] We arrived at the TH after midnight after a 7 hr descent with 4 of it in the dark. I kissed my truck.
This was one of the most exciting, difficult, thrilling, amazingly fun climbs I have done. Even though our timing was off, and the headlamp issue, and a few little detours on the trip it was a classic climb. Mark and Jeff are strong climbers and fun great guys. Thanks guys for a great experience in the mountains again. I will post some pics on the mountain page.
Gear notes
helmets, crampons, ice axe, rope used them all
pickets and ice screws not needed or used
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Mountain Loop Highway
