Snowfield Peak

You may remember that many (MANY) moons ago, Nick and I ordered a tandem. After a series of unfortunate delays it finally arrived on our doorstep yesterday. And while I’d hoped to be posting pictures of the completed bike by now, shoddy fork-man-ship left us at a construction impasse at 6 p.m. this evening. It may be Monday before we are able to remedy the situation.

In the mean time we’re entertaining suggestions for names for the bike. So far we’ve come up with Cinnamon Pony and the Aircraft Carrier. My mother nominated Cinnamon Bear last night, as well. Any suggestions would be welcome. Just leave a comment.

This also gives me time to edit pictures of last weekend’s climb of Snowfield Peak.

Rod in the foreground, Snowfield Peak in the background

Labor Day is a little late to be considering an ascent of most of Washington’s glaciated peaks. The forecast was good, though, so we decided against odds to give it a go.

For background, Snowfield Peak is an interesting summit in the North Cascades, about five miles ESE of the town of Newhalem. It isn’t visible from the North Cascade Highway, but its neighbors (Colonial Peak, Paul Bunyan’s Stump, Pinnacle Peak and Pyramid Peak) can easily be seen.

I met Tina, Rod, Matt, Bruce, Jim and Colt at the Pyramid Lake TH at 10 a.m. After a small discussion about tents (there would be three Hubba Hubba’s between us and shouldn’t Bruce take a Hubba to round things out?) we were off.

We arrived at Pyramid Lake within an hour. Jim made a preliminary investigation and suggested that this could be a nice cliff jumping area. Unfortunately Matt’s offer of $10 to anyone who would jump didn’t have any takers.

From here, a climbers’ trail ascends steeply through the forest and eventually tops out on the ridge below Pyramid Peak around 4,800’. We basked in the sun next to a little tarn about here and enjoyed a bite of lunch.

Matt and I were thirsty, so we attempted to pump water from the puddle. All we got was a clogged filter. If there’s an upside, though, I found a baby frog, which seemed to amuse everyone.

Colt shows off his duct tape repair

It was hard to imagine the trail getting any steeper, but it did. From the tarn we climbed hand over hand up a brushy trail to a prominent USGS summit, which one we never figured out.

By the time we reached 5,400’ we were hot, dusty, and tired. It was time to make camp.

Looking down on our lake-front camping site

There are plenty of level camping ledges in the area. Finding heather-less ground was a little challenging though.

Rod & Tina’s Hubba Hubba with Colonial Peak in the background

Dinner was a non-event and we were all in bed before dark.

The next morning we set off at 7 a.m. and ascended the last bit of ridge before descending into Colonial Basin. The going was easy, even when it came to navigating waterfalls and snow patches.

Matt

Jim sneaking between the snow and cliff

Within an hour we were on the Colonial Glacier heading up to the notch that would lead to the Neve Glacier.

The bottom of the glacier has no snow, so we began our ascent unroped

Looking back over the melt water lake to the peaks in the distance

Higher up on the Colonial Glacier, large crevasses appeared so we put on the ropes. Teams can differ on how they’d like to get from A to B, which gave us a great view of the other team.

By 9 a.m we had attained the gap that would lead to the 750-acre Neve Glacier. We weren’t sure until we got there if they connected. Turns out they don’t and we had to descend several hundred feet to get to the other glacier.

There’s not much more commentary to offer, so I’ll leave you with the final set of pictures:

It wouldn’t be much of a climb if Bruce didn’t break something and fix it with duct tape.

Photo by Matt Linden, all rights reserved

Do you see the people? Awesome perspective on how BIG the glacier is.

Roped up at the base of the summit pyramid. Photo by Colt DeWolf, all rights reserved

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