Glacier Peak July 12-15, 2007

I lost 8 lbs in 4 days on the Glacier peak diet! You can too..... Climbers: Bill Saur, Keith Hill, Linda Bedard, John Coyier, Joanna Picchi, Mike Niemeyer, Mike McHugh, and Gary Stephenson.

Bill Saur's (climb leader) initial discussions with the ranger stations revealed that an approach via the Little Wenatchee trail (#1525) was best since the road to the Little Wenatchee is open to the trailhead (el 3050') and is a higher start than other options.
Day 1: We spotted a car at the White River trailhead, drove to the Little Wenatchee trailhead (3050'), hiked the Little Wenatchee trail about 7 miles to the PCT, then continue along to camp at Indian Pass. (Original plan was to go all the way to White Pass but travel turned out to be much slower than planned due to trail conditions. ) Day 2: Left Indian Pass and hiked to White Pass (5900') where we had to hold up for about 2 hours to wait out a thunderstorm. We went around White Mt , crossed the ridge and traversed the Whitechuck basin to camp near Glacier gap (7200'). Day 3: We awoke at about 2 am to ascend the south side of Glacier Pk via the Suiattle/Cool/Gerdine glaciers. All the team reached the summit and returned to break camp at Glacier gap and begin the retirn trip via the Whitechuck basin. We explored an alternate return route out of the basin ascending a ridge north of peak 6750. Here we encountered a small but splendid alpine meadow that gave most of the group a break while Keith Hill and Bill Saur explored the possibilities for descending the other side of the ridge. After a senic ridge hike we dropped down into a dicey traverse (What started out looking very "doable" began to get sketcher as we became more committed on the slope.) We attained the old climbers trail and ultimately made camp at White Pass. Day 4: We broke camp at 6:30 am and returned to the trailhead via the Little Wenatchee trail we had originally come up. (The plan to experiment by returning via the as yet unexplored Lightning Creek having been scrapped after team members sited the Geneva Conventions regarding torture.)
After arriving back at the trailhead at about 1:15 pm we loaded up and found a campsite along the river for a quick dip and then a meal at the 49er Diner.
Emergency contact: "911" or Chelan County sheriff (509-663-9911 ).
GEAR: This is a glacier climb so we had the usual harness, prussiks, ice ax, biners, (we didn't bring helmets but they would have been a good idea for some of the scrambling over loose rock and the steep traverse) No rock gear. Food and lodging for 3 nights/4days. We used 3 60-meter x 8mm ropes.

USEFUL WEBSITES:
The primary USGS map is Glacier Peak East and the Green Trails ones are Glacier Peak and Benchmark Mt .
Our GPS Route, trailhead to Summit (UTM NAD27 CONUS)
Little Wentche 10 T 643017 5308750
2 -10 T 643146 5311276
3 -10 T 641499 5314568
4921ft-10 T 640468 5315487
5 -10 T 639251 5316048
6 -10 U 640075 5318327
7 -10 U 639880 5318907
8 -10 U 639637 5319452
9 -10 U 639627 5320267
8-WhitePass-ca -10 U 638041 5321447
10 -10 U 638605 5322386
6234ft1 10 U 638894 5322460
12 -10 U 639101 5322545
6562ft- 10 U 639083 5322666
6562ft1-10 U 639153 5322724
15 - 10 U 639487 5323424
16-10 U 639800 5324240
17- 10 U 640362 5325486
18-10 U 641037 5326518
7546ft-10 U 640983 5326748
19 -10 U 640949 5326882
20 -10 U 640879 5327477
7710ft - 10 U 641059 5328069
21 -10 U 641182 5328656
22 -10 U 641067 5329172
9022ft -10 U 641058 5329468
24 -10 U 640533 5329753
25 - 10 U 640452 5330195
10499ft-10 U 640515 533022