Rope team crossing the South...

Rope team crossing the South...

Rope team crossing the South Cascade Glacier, just before the col that drops down to the White Rock Lakes. The Dana Glacier and Spire Point make up the upper left hand side. July 2005.
Ragu
on Dec 8, 2005 10:37 pm
Image ID: 140252

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Eric Sandbo

Eric Sandbo - Jan 7, 2006 1:37 am - Hasn't voted

Excellent illustration

Besides being a beautiful shot, this shows where I went wrong on our trip. We arrived at this "viewpoint" after traversing all of Sentinel by compass in a storm. Hit the place where we wanted to access the glacier dead-on, but I hadn't studied the map beond there to note that the descent to White Rock Lakes starts from the top of the glacier (the pass seen here, just beyond the climbers). I led our cold, soaked party down the glacier, looking for a break in the S wall in the rain, fog, wind, and six inches of slush over the ice for an hour or two. A couple of my (former?) friends wanted to camp right there on the slush. Eventually we got oriented and headed up the glacier, dropped down the slope on the other side and camped on the first relatively flat ground we found. Just another one of those "read the *&^%$@ map" lessons.

Bob Bolton

Bob Bolton - Jan 8, 2006 2:03 am - Voted 10/10

Re: Excellent illustration

Yeah, we could easily have made the same mistake in the high winds and driven rain, but one of our guys was getting very cold, and we weren't confident in our ability to find the saddle, so when we stumbled into the bivy site on the west slopes of Sentinel above the glacier, we called it a day. My party didn't even want to go on the next day in the fog even though it wasn't stormy.

Ragu

Ragu - Jan 21, 2006 1:16 am - Hasn't voted

Re: Excellent illustration

Thanks Eric. It's amazing how the weather can make such a huge difference on the experience. Sounds like you guys got the full package deal! Besides, when you encounter adversity your stories are better back at the pub!!



I hate to say it, but we didn't have 1 drop of rain in 8 days... no fog, low winds... really boring.

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