[b00]

eldorado 6/20 - 6/21/2011

summit of eldorado

all trips to this area are special. a chance to climb the golden one, eldorado, with a great group of guys was definitely a bit of good fortune as is any trip with the modern one. the weather was forecasted to be sunny, but was cloudy most of the first day. we had poor visibility all the to camp on the east shoulder of eldorado at ~7600'. we parked at the typical spot by the outhouse and crossed on those cadillacs of logs across the cascade river.

modern crosses the cascade river on one of the cadillacs of logs

we soon came upon a very nice nols party. big group, most of them looked like they were going to expire if they had to take another step with their over-sized packs. before the boulder fields i found an ice axe laying on the ground someone had dropped(maybe a nols member). i hung it up on a limb so it would be easy to find by its owner and it was gone when we came back the next day. the first boulder field snow free. we got water a little climber's right of the top of the first boulder field. the rest of the way was snow. we camped on the east shoulder of eldorado and found running melt water (not running in morning). there was much more new snow than we expected - about one foot. fortunately we were without iron or fast feet jt and so i got to kick 90%+ of the steps. the snow had a breakable crust and in a lot of places it was mid calf deep. we heard and saw a few sluffs on the way up. the weather broke when we got to camp so after putting up tents we headed up to the summit. it was slow going as the snow on eldorado's east ridge was more strenuous. this was going to r's first glacier lead so when we got close, i let him take the lead, but snow conditions were too much for him and his team, so i took back over kicking steps. two of the folks on this trip were people i'd never climbed with before, r being one of them. sometimes new people are weird, fortunately these guys were really nice and a pleasure to climb with, so i was glad to keep kicking.

ascending eldorado's east ridge

eventually we got even closer to the summit and i let r take over again. we were so slow going up that modern had already skinned up, climbed to the summit and waited a while. the "knife edge" on very top was very suspicious. it looked like the path on it could have been on a cornice. we looked, but could not get a good viewing angle, so it was too hard to tell. we had rick protect with 2 pickets below the path on the non-cornice side. the summit rocks were still covered with snow and it was windy and cold so we quickly boogied off. this was a lot different than the perfectly sunny day i had up here in 2004. modern was very worried about skiing down because of the breakable crust conditions. but after trying a couple of test turns, he found he could stay on the hard surface without breaking through. he was happy. it was reasonably easy for me, but the others seemed annoyed by the snow conditions. camp was incredible. one of the premier spots. the night was colder than the forecast predicted because the winds were higher. i slept in almost all my clothes.

modern gives a thumbs up for breakfast on the east shoulder of eldorado - forbidden and the rest of the north cascades provides a backdrop

because all the new snow presented serious avy danger, we decided not to climb klawatti.

klawatti peak rises above all of us on the inspiration glacier

i offered to reclimb eldorado in the morning so others could get pictures when the weather was clear, but no one wanted. that was ok with me as i know i will be up there again :>) we put on crampons (not necessary, but useful) to descend. modern skinned back up to near the summit and skied a bunch of great corn. he also got a couple of good runs on the eldorado glacier while we descended. the gully between eldorado and rousch creeks had a sizable moat with a melting snow bridge. on the way back out, we avoided the gully a found a nearby(75' away) continuous snow slope to boot up. there have been numerous logs over the years people have used to cross the cascade river. because of this, there are numerous trails leading to the river. i missed getting the correct trail by about 100' so we needed to bushwack an extra 3 minutes. one of these times...

frank poses in front of eldorado

equipment:ice axe, crampons, harness, helmets(used for boulder field), 2 pickets, rope, (modern used skis, skins, ski crampons) stats: ~ 8hrs car to camp ~ 1.5 hrs messing around at camp 1:53 camp to summit 0:06 summit time 0:54 summit to camp 5:42 camp to car modern says( http://www.turns-all-year.com/skiing_snowboarding/trip_reports/index.php?topic=21245.0 ): "Hollywood and I led a Mountaineers Basic climb (party of 6) on Monday and Tue. (photos by Hollywood) The plan was to climb Eldorado and maybe Klawatti, conditions permitting. I was the only one with skis, although others were envious ONCE THE SKIS AND BOOTS WERE UP THERE and that is the key point. It was a strong group and we had a great time. Parked in the normal spot and the log crossing is just downstream and super easy. Did not dare hike in ski boots since I knew it would be a long way before snow. Hiked 2 hours up through what I think was all the boulder fields until hitting snow in the basin (about 4000 I think). Some runnels on the Eldorado Creek side of the ridge. Easy to cross ridge with snow. Above about 6000 the new snow from (I assume) last Saturday smoothed things out, but it had not frozen Sunday night so it was mush, and I was surprised at how much new there had been. Up higher it was nearly a foot. Camped in an established spot at about 7700 on the E ridge of Eldorado. There was running water in the evening but not in the morning. It had been cloudy so far but as the clouds thinned and lowered, we set up camp and headed to the top. After only a few minutes in the shade the smooth water- saturated snow began to crust over, and I began to worry about a nasty descent on breakable crust. We topped out at 8 p.m. or so but by the time I descended it was frozen solid so it was still a descent ski with no breaking through. In one of the photos you can see Klawatti in the background. With all the new snow and the warm day ahead it was obvious that Klawatti not safe, so we slept in to 6:30 and took our time heading out. It froze fairly hard overnight and I skinned up nearly to the top of Eldorado in the morning for another run on smooth corn, and the Eldorado Glacier down to the ridge crossing was so good that I took 2 runs on that. Moving lower down Eldorado Creek it was mush with runnels and seemed like it did not freeze there. No pollen. Saw 1 mosquito. "

[iron]

nice. well, breaking trail for 90% on this trip averaged with the rest of 'em this year should get you to at least 2% --- your annual goal great shots of the cloud. nice sun star images too. must have been a great sunset.

[Magellan]

Love your TR's b00. Never any chance of a photo dump.

[wildernessed]

Nice summit shot !