[Bluebird]

Brenda, hot.choss, Neek and I headed out to the Icecap for Memorial Day weekend. Many years it would be a bit early for this route, but not this year. I credit Max for the stellar idea to go tag his 82, 83 and 84th Bulgers. Although I'm smooting (got 96! Little T! yesterday!), I am always down for an interesting adventure somewhere new. Max and I arrived the previous afternoon and secured the Klawatti XC Zone 2 permit before heading to the trailhead in my shiny new blue outback. We scouted out the river crossing logs, cooked dinner and went to sleep. Crew assembled in the early morning and we left the trailhead around 6:15am. Although you could ford at the cairned route from the trailhead parking, the water is running high and we were hoping for dry feet. We took a collection of logs across and achieved dry feet.

A slightly annoying but not difficult bushwhack/faint trail to the kiosk took just a few minutes and we were off up the trail, which is quite nice after the first few minutes of blowdown. The boulder field also didn't provide us much trouble, but all 4 of us are excellent navigators. We found trail where it was on the sides of the fields (first on the right, then on the left).

One section the best route has a large tree down through it so we just pushed through to the other side of the tree. Beyond this we hit consistent snow, breaking trail into the upper basin. We were surprised to apparently be the first ones up recently.

From the basin we found the downclimb

, which was moderately steep snow with melted out scramble at the base, then up what felt like a more snow than I remembered to the glacier, where we roped up. We put Neek in front since he professes little glacier experience, so he would fall in first and the other 3 could pull him out. Our team cruised along so harmoniously we kept the same arrangement for all glacier travel the rest of the trip. Kudos to Neek for his strong trail breaking.

After a scenic traverse across the Inspiration Glacier we found and set up camp at Klawatti Col

, which had one melted out campsite, lots of snow and no running water. After setting up camp we had plenty of time for Klawatti. Klawatti: we were able to gain the rock with a wide step across the moat to a slabby thing. We continued up more slabby things with various holds until finding "a move", which Max lead and I followed to pull gear before pig-tailing the rest of the party up to us. It seemed low 5th ish, but awkward, downsloping and exposed. (On the descent Neek found a possible bypass that looked slabby and more dangerous than just protecting this move, but you do you). There are rap anchors here, which worked with a 60m to reach the snow with rope stretch and a moat jump. A second anchor is below if you have a shorter rope. Above here it's a straightforward class 2/3 scramble until you chossaineer to the summit.

Primus: the next morning we set off for Primus. It was icy near camp and to the Primus/Austera col, but after that we could have just left our crampons at the col because good booting snow was the thing. We rapped down the col and continued across the glacier, descending to 7000 feet to go below the Austera Tower barrier. The potential bypass route is out, a huge moat crosses the entire gully. We went up the North Klawatti glacier and found a rock island to leave some gear on before heading up the peak. We were able to take snow for about 1000 feet before chossaineering to the broad flat summit. This is a spectacular place so we chilled for a while, enjoying and chatting with the 3 skiiers who had camped near us the previous night. After enjoying for long enough that our mountain laundry dried and melting enough snow for water we backtracked our route to Austera.

Austera: snow reached up to almost 8200 feet on the peak! A faint choss path lead to a high point, but not the summit. We could see the summit with a rap anchor on it, so continued along the ridge and up the false summit (class 4). We rapped the downclimb to snow at the base of the summit tower. We were able to gain rock with a spooky wide step, which we belayed some of the party across. Great summit views!

At the Klawatti/Austera Col we used Neek's bypass route on the left of the rap anchors and managed to scramble across (class 3/4 but kinda awkward in boots) while staying roped up, each person continued over the crest to keep the rope tight as the next followed. Worked great- roped travel Expert Level. Eldorado: after a very cold night at the Col, we headed back across the glaciers. We had plenty of time, and who can resist Eldorado on a lovely sunny day when it's only 1500 extra feet. We dropped our overnight packs and headed up to enjoy the knife edge and prominence. For some reason the site won't let me add eldorado photos! Lame. After Eldorado, Brenda and Neek also summitted Eggplant. The crew reconvened near the Eldorado access gully and cruised downhill, surprised at how many feet had been in the snow and how much had melted out since our arrival. The log crossing went well, also with dry feet. Thanks to everyone for the trip, and no thanks for drawing the "short straw" where I have to violate my "no computer when not at work" rule to write this trip report. Photos included are harvested from all 4 of us!

[neek]

Excellent trip with great company. Thanks for the report.

[raising3hikers]

Beautiful trip and pics!!

[Gimpilator]

Great memories in this area. Some of the best WA has to offer. Great job all.

[jboealps]

: )

[zimmertr]

[Bluebird]

I agree. Neek got some stellar photos on that trip! Even i did, although that's always accidental.