Delayed trip report from our trip up the Easton Glacier on Sunday July 7th. 4 people in our party, we did not go with a guide.
Started Saturday morning from the Park Butte trailhead @ 9 AM, made it up the railroad camp to Sandy Camp just before noon. Found a nice spot on the rock/dirt as a group was packing up to leave. Water source was close by, just down the hill a little bit to a little stream trickle.
Set-up camp and practiced snow skills for a few hours. Was nice to see so many other groups doing the same.
Bed-time @ 7:30 PM (We tried at least). Alarm went off at 1:15. The guided group sleeping by us had a midnight wake-up call, but they were quiet and respectful.
Started hiking @ 2:46 AM, crampons and ropes went on immediately, although a bunch of other groups didn't do this for quite some time.
Had a few snow bridge and crevasse crossings. There was one that was opened up on both sides, we moved quickly through, but the snow felt solid and was about 10 feet wide, although you never know when it could collapse. Very obvious boot pack going up the entire way! The snow was pretty soft for the first few hours.
There are two bootpacks leading up to the Sherman Crater... take the one to the left that doesn't get too close to the rock fall and cut over to peek into the crater!! Sooo cool, by far our favorite view of the day.
Weather was foggy and we were in a cloud. Our hair was frozen from the moisture :)
Roman wall was steep but good switchback bootpack.
Made it to the top at 8:26 AM. Stayed until about 9:15.
We let 46 guided climbers pass us on our way down! Probably should have figured out how to pass safely, but we were on a weird turn on the swithback and i didn't feel comfortable stepping above or below the trail.
Summit was beautiful, but a little windy. :)
Once passing the Sherman crater, we got caught in a "whiteout", it was hard to see our entire group of 4 if you were the first person in line. We followed the boot-pack but had to really keep our eyes open for where the snow bridge crossings were.
Got back to camp around and it was raining really hard, which made for a not so fun pack-up and hike down :)
All in all it's a great route right now as of a few days ago. Definitely recommend. Be safe and have the route downloaded in case conditions change!
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