Starting across the Neve...

Starting across the Neve Glacier. From the pass above & behind us, we saw a crevasse that may have split the entire plateau on the right, so we dropped into and across the basin. One of our party fell nearly 40 feet through a snow bridge near the peak. Our group was large enough (a Skagit Valley College mountaineering class) that we dragged him out without bothering with pulleys. Though his ropemates obviously had too much slack in the rope, you have to give one of them credit for decisive arrest; he snapped his ice axe shaft when he dropped on it.

About a third of our group climbed Colonial on the way back to camp, making the fifth summit for the weekend.

September, 1982