Eldorado Peak — Saturday, Aug. 27, 2016

North Cascades > North Cascades Highway - Hwy 20

Have been eying Eldorado for almost a year now - finally got a promising window of availability/weather and 2 willing "victims" to lead on their first roped, glaciated climb. The forecast for Saturday was mixed with at least some clouds expected. Trail was in near perfect condition up to Eldorado glacier. Very steep, lots of gain in just a few miles. Definitely felt the 45 pound pack, but hey, safety first. Progression is basically: steep, root-filled forest climb - series of boulder fields - Eldorado basin - (we went via gully off ridge) Roush Basin - Eldorado Glacier (steep) - Inspiration Glacier (flat) - East Ridge - knife edge summit! The cloudy forecast must have deterred some parties and Eldorado/Inspiration glacier WERE quite cloudy which deterred the rest of the parties from proceeding onto the glacier. We arrived a bit later in the day and decided to wait it out and worst case, set up camp by the glacier. We got a bit of a cloud break and decided to go for it! With a bit of route-finding in moderately cloudy/windy weather, we hit the climbers base camp on the east ridge at around 7,600'. It's right in the obvious rock cropping at the beginning of the east ridge on your left ascending along the flat Inspiration glacier. Was windy enough for my friend's tent pole to snap but we were able to jury-rig a fix. Be warned: the correct glacier route (right near but not too close to the rocks on your right as you ascend up Eldorado glacier, then roughly diagonally left across Inspiration to camp) posed little to no crevasse risk, but if you veer off course at all (which is not so hard to do in the clouds), you need to keep a very sharp eye out for crevasses. I strongly suggest bringing a GPS device as one of your back-ups in the event of a white-out to protect against crevasse risk & mark obstacles. We went to sleep not knowing what to expect the next morning - white out, bluebird skies, etc. Woke up to a beautifully clear sunrise with full visibility through our ascent up the last ~1,200' past the bergschrund to the knife edge. It was everything we expected and more with full on panoramic views of the whole range all the way down to Rainier. Descent post-glacier was pretty brutal but we went fast, leaving climbers camp at 10:30, back to our cars by 2. Legs were sore for several days!