Eldorado Peak on Inspiration Glacier
Justin and I - with help from AAI guide Will Gordon - summited 8,870' Eldorado Peak on Inspiration Glacier in the North Cascades (Washington State)!
We got the permit only a week before - peak season means there's not much pre-hike booking available - which meant we could attempt Eldorado and didn't have to divert to something less popular. I flew up to Seattle and stayed with Justin and Abigail the night before. Justin and I drove up to Bellingham, picked up William and a pair of rental boots, and headed out to Marblemount to get the permit. We didn't end up getting to the 2100' trailhead until noon. Weather was quite warm (80F) and calm, no wind.
We crossed the river by walking across fallen trees and hiked a very short flat distance in the big-tree forest before the trail pitched up. A lot!
The trail opened up into a talus field, which is a jumble of rocks and boulders. They started out small but some were as big as cars or houses.
The temps dropped into perfect low-70s as we climbed. Here's a shot of the valley and Johannesburg Mountain on the other side.
Climbing above the treeline into open alpine meadow was amazing. Lots of marmots making their whistle-pig sounds. We filled up on water from streams before crossing a ridge to the west and into Roush Creek Basin at 6100', where we saw snow for the first time.
We roped up and climbed through the snowfield and over Eldorado Glacier.
Some visible crevasses nearby, and a nice side-on view of the glacier with horizontal bands called ogives. We transitioned onto Inspiration Glacier and found a perfect place to camp among the rocks at 7500'. There's a fixed porta-potty near the campsites! Luxury!
We watched the sun go down, had a nice easy evening, and got a lot of sleep. Our alpine start was a ridiculous 6:30am. Temps were 35F, snow was soft over hardpack (no ice). I'm not sure it gets any better!
From there it was easy glacier travel over and around small crevasses.
Here's where the glacier is slowly sliding away from the rocky ridge. We climbed over the snow bridge with brilliant aquamarine coloured snow/ice.
Then we climbed six easy (scramble to 5.4-5.7) pitches up a very exposed rocky ridge. The far side of the ridge drops for thousands of feet down to the green valley floor, and for a few sections of the climb it's easiest to wrap around and climb with the huge drop below you. Not hard climbing, but terrifying for those of us blessed with a perfectly natural and healthy fear of heights.
Great view of the ridgeline, the crevasse to the right, and the drop to the valley on the left.
We put our crampons back on and traversed a short passage from the ridgeline over the glacier and up onto the famous knife-edge path to the summit. This freaked me out. LOTS of exposure, a fall here would be bad. Wobbly knees.
After the ridgeline climb and knife-edge path, the summit was anti-climatic. Beautiful views, perfect warm and clear weather, and enough cellphone service to facetime Sara!
We took the glacier route down and found a cool ice-cave formed by a crevasse that hadn't opened up yet. I went in but was too scared to go too far. Lots of dripping water.
We were back at camp in no time, tore everything down, and glissaded (read: slid on our butts) down the glacier, hiked over the notch from Roush to Eldorado basin, down past the marmot meadows, boulder field, forest, and river, and back to the car before 6pm.
Amazing climb, perfect weather, ideal companions, 10/10 would climb again.