Sunset, as seen from camp
Elain and I had originally planned to attempt the West Ridge of Mount Stuart, but the weather forecast for Saturday looked grim. So we decided instead to attempt Eldorado Peak via the Northeast Face. Elain was looking forward to trying out her new Feathered Friends sleeping bag on an overnight trip. I was looking forward to doing some ice climbing, after being shut down by storms last weekend in our attempt to reach Observation Rock. We drove to Marblemount early in the morning in order to ensure getting a permit, arriving at 6:50. There were already two other parties queued up, waiting for permits. Fortunately neither of them was hoping for an Eldorado permit. At 7 AM the office opened, and eventually we got up to the counter. We requested a permit for the Eldorado alpine zone, and informed the ranger that we would be climbing the northeast face route. He cheerfully asked us, "will you be doing any fishing?". We assured the ranger that we would be leaving the fishing tackle and bait at home. Permit in hand, we set off to climb Eldorado. We made a quick stop for muffins at the Shell station in Marblemount, and soon our Jeep was rumbling up the dusty Cascade River Road towards the Eldorado trailhead.
At 8:00 AM we reached the trailhead, and we started assembling our gear for the climb. By 8:40 we were walking. The first order of business was to cross the Cascade River. We followed a trail through thick brush and slide alder that eventually reached the river. There was a log crossing (a massive downed tree), but the tree was up at a 15-degree angle, and it terminated in a giant clump of dirt and roots that we could not see around. So we bushwhacked around in the thick brush and pricker bushes for a bit, trying to find a different river crossing. Finding nothing more appealing, we reluctantly returned to the steep tree. On closer inspection, we saw that it connected up with another log on the other side of the huge dirt clump. I walked carefully up the steep tree, the end of which was about 8' above the river level. Elain momentarily lost her balance, but quickly recovered and reached the dirt clump. From there, it was an easy walk across the rest of the river on a wide, level log.
The trail going up to Eldorado Peak is very direct and steep; whoever blazed this trail must have had an aversion to switchbacks. The first 2000' of elevation gain was in the forest. It was hot, and the steep trail had us sweating profusely. We encountered a party of climbers from the Seattle branch of the Mountaineers, some of whom were also planning to climb the Northeast Face. We were glad to eventually break out of the forest at 4000' elevation, where we encountered a small talus field. At the top of the talus field, we came to a short trail that connected up with a much larger talus field. This short "trail" was absurdly steep and had many large rock steps over which we could barely high-step; we felt like Lilliputians in the land of the Big People. Soon we reached the larger talus field, where we climbed for another 1000' vertical. The larger talus field can be partially bypassed by staying on a climbers' path on the periphery of the talus. However, we somehow got confused into leaving the climbers' path too early, so we ended up climbing a lot of moss-covered talus. Eventually we reached a nice waterfall at 5000', where we stopped for lunch. The weather was overcast and it was starting to get foggy as we ascended higher, but there was no wind or precipitation.
After lunch, we climbed up above treeline and into thick clouds. Based on Nelson's route description, we turned climbers' left and ascended rock slabs up towards the ridge that separates the Eldorado Creek basin from the Roush Creek basin. Visibility was limited to about 200', and the slabs were getting slippery from the mist. We heard the Mountaineers party climbing up the slabs above us, and it was tempting to just follow them, since their trip leader had been up Eldorado before and seemed very familiar with the route. However, my altimeter was reading 6300', and I knew we should have gained the ridge crest at just below 6150'. So I suspected that we had gone a bit too high on the slabs, and that the Mountaineers party was going further off-route by continuing upward. Suppressing our lemming urges, we turned back and started downclimbing the slabs, tending right (west) towards the ridge crest. Eventually we reached the ridge crest, where we were pleased to find the gully that allowed us to scramble down into the Roush Creek basin. From there, we scrambled up talus and then more rock slabs, until reaching the snow line at 6600' at about 4:00 PM. Visibility was still very limited, so we decided to camp there, rather than try to climb up to the Inspiration Glacier. We found a flat but slightly down-sloping rock slab surrounded by ice. We pitched the tent there, using ice screws to anchor the guy lines.
I cooked dinner using our new MSR "Pocket Rocket" stove. It was much quieter than the XGK. We enjoyed being able to have a conversation while the stove was operating. At about 5:00 PM, the Mountaineers party came by. They confirmed that they had ascended quite a bit too high. They stopped to put on crampons, and then continued on their way up to the high camp. We were asleep by 7:00 PM. Our down-sloping campsite and half-size sleeping pads made for an imperfect night's sleep, but we were just glad to be resting after the long carry. We heard a few avalanches during the night; probably it was icefall from the Eldorado Glacier.
At 2:30 we were up and packing. It was cold and a bit windy, but we saw a few stars which gave us some hope. We chose to remove the tent poles and anchor the tent with rocks, so that it would not blow away while we were away climbing the mountain. By 3:45 we were climbing. Our line of ascent took us through a "dry" section of the Eldorado Glacier where we had to do some end-runs around crevasses. The wind intensified a bit as we ascended, and the clouds were still obscuring the route above us. At 7500' we reached the very flat Inspiration Glacier, but clouds totally obscured the mountain and the East Ridge. Using the compass, we crossed the Inspiration Glacier, eventually seeing the outline of the East Ridge emerge through the clouds. At this time the sun came up; we were treated to an incredible sunrise as we passed the Mountaineers' bivy site at 7800'. The wind died down, the clouds soon parted, and we made our way up the East Ridge under blue sky. Eventually we turned climbers' right and descended a bit, then climbed a ridge, to reach the base of the Northeast Face. The Mountaineers party ended up being in front of us, so while they were setting up belays for their three rope teams, Elain and I established a belay for a line to the right of them. At this time, I noticed two ice screws were missing from my harness. They must have somehow levered off the ice clipper on my harness, while we were walking across the glacier. We debated about what to do, and decided to continue climbing. Because of the deficit of two screws, I set up a belay using a V-thread, in order to save screws for the pitch. The pitch started out with a steep 10' step of ice, beyond which the angle kicked back and was more moderate. I stretched out the pitch as far as I could, and eventually Elain yelled out "there is no more rope!". At that point I constructed a V-thread for a belay. It was an awkward high-angle belay stance, and by the time the V-thread was constructed my calves were burning. It was hard communicating with Elain, and it was confusing because there were so many other climbers on the route, shouting to their belayers and such. I belayed Elain up to me, and set out on the second pitch. The second pitch was more moderate than the first, so we just simul-climbed once I ran out of rope. Another pitch of snow climbing got us to the snow arete on the summit ridge. The arete is quite striking, and while not at all technical, it is one of the most enjoyable parts of the climb. I placed two pickets on the arete, and once I reached the summit rocks, I belayed Elain over to me. There were half a dozen climbers and one dog on the summit, who had come up the East Ridge. The time was about 9:45 AM.
The descent was straightforward but long. We stopped to traverse out onto the glacier to look for the lost ice screws, but did not succeed in finding them. After a while, we gave up the search and continued our descent towards camp. Once at camp, we packed up as quickly as possible, and started descending the rock slabs into the Roush Creek basin. At one point Elain slipped on some kind of slime on one of the slabs, and took a hard fall. But she was soon climbing again, and we made good time back to the talus. From there we located a suitable gully and scrambled back up to the ridge. Descending the 1000' of talus and the steep climbers' trail proved to be time-consuming and very tiring. We reached the car at 6:00 PM. At the car, we found a note from the park ranger. Apparently we had accidentally written the wrong dates on the form we filled out for the voluntary climbers' register. We had written "Aug. 15-16" rather than "Aug. 16-17". This caused the park ranger to think we were overdue. We drove to the Marblemount ranger station straight away, to straighten things out. Park ranger Craig Rasmussen drove up just as we arrived at the ranger station. He was very nice and professional. He said we needed to call my parents (who I had listed as my emergency contact number on the climbers' register), because he had already called them and apprised them that we were apparently overdue. Craig said that they had plans to use a helicopter to search for us, at first light on Monday morning. We apologized profusely for all of the trouble we had caused, and were very grateful that the park service had not yet flown a helicopter to look for us.
Gear we used: 2 pickets, 3 ice screws, ice tool, ice axe, crampons, 8.5mm x 50m rope.
Things we learned:
Sunset, as seen from camp
Sunrise, as seen from the base of the East Ridge
alpenglow on the summit of Eldorado Peak
Steve leading the first pitch
Steve leading the first pitch
Steve, on the summit
Elain downclimbing the summit snow arete
the summit snow arete of Eldorado Peak
Elain on the trail, with Mount
Johannesburg in the background