[cartman]

Neve tarn and Snowfield

I've been wanting to return to the Colonial basin area after doing this trip a few years ago. Matt, hotpantz, iron and b00 joined for this tour in some of the most spectacular glaciated terrain in the Cascades. Day 1: Neve and Colonial The Pyramid Lake Trail only goes two miles to the lake; from here the trail is unmaintained and steep, but at least there is little brush to deal with. Eventually ~5400' the views open up.

Break time

One can either go to the upper terminus of the ridge at 5900' and traverse high, or drop down sooner on a trail then a wet gully to traverse above the falls. We chose to drop down.

Traverse above the falls

Beginning the traverse

Colonial Falls

A short distance past the falls brought us to the glacial lake in Colonial Basin. The lake is still mostly frozen, so we went directly across.

Crossing the lake, Colonial Basin

The Colonial Glacier showed no crevassing on our route, so the ropes stayed in the packs as we went upslope to Neve Col and our camp for three days.

Matt and Brett above the basin

Mike and Carrie, up to Neve Col

Paul Bunyan's Stump, Pinnacle, Pyramid

Matt and I had done Colonial on previous trips, but the others wanted to go for it this evening. Matt set up camp while I accompanied them on a traverse around Neve's south face before peeling off for the summit of Neve, 7505'.

Neve tarn and Snowfield

Think I've seen more of these this year than any other:

Ptarmigan on Neve

Atop Neve, I hung out and watched the evening marine layer approach the nearby peaks.

Clouds rolling in over the Horseman

Cloudcap on Pinnacle

Stump Shroud

Stump Engulfed

Sundown

The clouds played around the western peaks, but avoided Colonial. I saw a lone climber summit the lower south peak of Colonial,

Carrie on Colonial South Peak

then saw two crossing Colonial's high snowfield and gain the main summit ridge before disappearing onto the north face before summitting. In the meantime Matt had wandered up to spend the night on the summit of Neve. As the sun dropped, the light continued to shift and illuminate the clouds pouring over the nearby peaks.

Matt and sunset, Neve summit

Sunset

Matt and the Stump

Sunset, Neve summit

That evening the rest of us hung out under perfectly clear skies watching meteors and the stars before heading off to sleep. Good day. Day 2: Horseman's Pack and The Needle Our first objective would be our high point for this trip. Horseman's Pack is the highest point in the area outside of Snowfield at 8152'. However, it is misidentified as The Needle on the USGS and TOPO as well as GT. The Needle is the 8040' triangular summit farther west in the cirque. HP is the first hight point west of Snowfield, just east of the chimney-like spire called The Horseman. Conditions in the morning were ideal, aside from a bit of marine haze higher.

Neve Glacier

Snowfield

We roped up just below camp and dropped the 300' down to the Neve Glacier, and began the long rise to the far side of the cirque.

Skirting the crevasses

First rope team, Neve Glacier

Glacial Tsunami

Crevasses

Snow Bridge and the Needle

The high cirrus made for some fine shots.

Cirrus above the Cat's Ear

Up the Neve

Magical

End run

Farther up we approached our first objective of the day:

Horseman's Pack and the Horseman

Giddy-up

Hold on, hombre

Pack and Rider

That's one big cowboy

Horseman's Pack

Ain't climbin' that

We had some excellent info from Fay's successful summit of Horseman's Pack last year, and routefinding was easy. From the col between HP and The Horseman we traversed left on loose talus to the east shoulder of HP and around on a nice ledge to the summit gully on the Pack's south face.

Clambering up the Pack

Great ledge

The gully was class 3/4 scrambling directly up to the airy summit.

Carrie making a move in the summit gully

Up to the top

There was just enough room to sit the five of us side-by-side.

Horseman's Pack summit

Summit register, Horseman's Pack

Careful downclimbing brought us back to the snow where we dropped a couple of hundred feet to begin the traverse to The Needle.

Approaching the Needle

The rock looked unappealing, so we decided to take the snow on the left then traverse above the schrund cutting across the face.

Up the face

This brought us to the rock and the beginning of the hardest climbing of the trip.

The Needle

Easy blocky scrambling,

Blocky scrambling

shortly brought us to harder class 4 and low class 5 climbing. Using our 35M rope I belayed Matt up a mostly solid pitch with some interesting moves--mantles, friction etc. After Matt set up an anchor, we now had a fixed line rigged that the rest of us used a prusik on while climbing. We left this line in place and broke out our 30M rope for the second pitch.

The Needle summit block

This was also mostly solid but Matt had to use a rather circuitous route to find placements for pro. Matt quickly encountered a 6-foot step that he was unable to find a way around. I suggested he rig an aid move with a makeshift etrier (a sling hung for a foot placement) and he was able to surmount the blank wall to continue the pitch.

The Needle, upper summit

Matt's fine leads up these two pitches and again using the rope as a fixed line for a prusik brought us up to the summit of The Needle, 8040'. We found no register here.

Looking back at the Horseman

Isolation Traverse

Snowfield

Needle summit

Careful downclimbing secured to the fixed lines by a prusik brought us back to the blocky scramble and a nice break as shadows began to move across the glacier. We crossed the glacier to the by now beaten in downtrack from multiple Snowfield summit parties and back to camp.

Shadows Falling

Big 'un

Evening on Snowfield

Day 3: Paul Bunyan's Stump and Pinnacle attempt Will finish the report in the next day.

[Matt]

reserved for Matt's photos

matching crampons

Neve Col Camp

sunset cloud waves

[ree]

Nice!!! I like the matching crampons shot. Great minds think alike. Such great open terrain with nice views...

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Wow, great shots Eric! Looks like that summit register is filling up fast, despite there being no pencil (maybe there is now).

7/23/11

[iron]

adding a few pics: day 1

neve peak and neve glacier

such delicate life in a rugged area

green!

just big enough for a dip

heathery glacier

matt looking on from neve

matt and cartman on neve

heading down

day 2

ice fall

suncups

people and crevasses

cartman

matt

great skies!

cartman's turn

cartman, heading down

traversing towards a crevasse

always a serious dude

hanging at camp. note the running water on both sides!

having fun

day 3

rugged terrain

bunny cartman

the man

poser

icefall

fading light