Unsuccessful Attempt at Glacier Peak! BUT what a grand adventure anyway with some awesome people : ) Spent the night in my car, and was moving by 6:15am sat am. Make it to the ruins of poor Mackinaw Shelter t 8:30am and pushed it up to White Pass by 11am! Not super fast, but great for me : ) Chill-axed until friends got there at 2pm. We followed the Foam Creek trail up over the ridge and down onto the White Chuck Glacier. We had hoped to go to high camp for the night, but the wind was pretty impressive and we felt better camping there at ~6,400ft. There was a spot to get water a bit below camp. The weather that night was "exciting" to say the least and my tent tried to fold down on top of me a few times! Talk about noisy! Thank goodness for tough Big Agnes tents! Nobody slept very well and by 4:30am when we got up, the wind was Really Moving and there was rain/snow mix flying though the air. Visibility was hit and miss but we'd come so far and had to at least give it a go! Well the further up we went, the worse the conditions became. The wind picked up so that the strong gusts easily caught me off guard. visibility was practically zilch and at that point we were blindly following our GSP's. . .So,. . .
In the end we made it just past high camp at ~7,500ft and called it : ( It was the right choice as were all wet and starting to get too cold, but still a bummer. BUT We'll BE BACK!
Packing up in the wind/rain was tricky and the nasty followed us all the way back to about 1000ft below while pass. We finally got some sun through the trees at Mackinaw shelter where we were able to dry out a bit before returning to the cars.
If Mountains were a sure thing, they would offer no excitement!
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