On Saturday of Labor Day weekend we met at the 65th Street Park and Ride. We saw Sunny and Terra who were getting ready to go cycling as well as Peter and his gang who were heading out to Curtis Gilbert. Rod, Tina and I piled into my car and we drove out to Marblemount to pick up permits. The word from the rangers was that not many folks had been out to the Colonial Basin area. We left the trailhead a little before 10am.
Beyond Pyramid Lake, the hike up was as steep as I remembered from my previous failed attempt at Snowfield. This time it was more pleasant because it was not wet and cold; however, on the hike in we were attacked by yellowjackets. There were two places along the trail where people got stung, some as many as four times. I was stung three times, all on the back of my left leg. We saw a hole in the ground at the edge of the trail where the nest was. Even though people were careful not to step near the hole, the vibrations of passing hikers must have been enough to disturb the yellowjackets and incite them to attack. We were carrying two epinephrine injectors among us but fortunately nobody had a bad reaction. The stings were initially quite painful and over the course of the next couple of days and even after the trip was over became merely itchy.
We stopped for lunch at the open area at the base of a steep section requiring vegetation belays. On my previous trip I remember that we had gotten to this point but beyond that the trail had branched into less substantial trails that eventually disappeared when we tried to follow them. We had eventually ended up bushwhacking and even had to rappel a short steep cliff. This time, we had no such difficulties perhaps because the trail was better defined or, more likely, due to Rod's superior route-finding.
We reached the flat part of the ridge at 5,400 feet in the mid-afternoon. There was some consideration for pushing on to higher camp areas but the spot where we were had nice camp sites and a reasonable water source so we decided to stay put. The campsite had great views in all directions. We could see down to Ross Lake. It was moderately buggy. We saw one other party, a twosome, whom we would also see the following day.
The next morning we woke up to partly cloudy conditions and set out at 7am. We traversed boulder fields and crossed a large snow patch by walking and climbing through the moat at its top. We motored across the Colonial Glacier which was mostly bare ice and made our way over the saddle leading to the Neve Glacier. Rod, Tina, Colt and I tied in to one rope; Carry, Jim and Matt tied in to the other. There were snow patches and rock fields on the descent from the saddle to the glacier. As we were crossing one of the rock field, my crampon broke. One of the metal posts holding the toe bail snapped and the crampon slid out from under my boot and onto the side of my boot. I was using lightweight aluminum crampons by Camp. I had used them on different trips in the past and I had always been concerned about the metal piece connecting the front and back sections of the crampon developing a stress fracture due to constant flexing when wearing boots without a full shank. I would not have expected the crampon to break where it did. Fortunately, it was easy to fix by wrapping a length of duct tape to reattach the toe bail to the crampon frame.
We had to skirt a handful of crevasses but we had good visibility and route-finding was fairly straightforward. We reached the saddle to the west of the peak and dropped packs for the scramble to the summit. A rough trail led about halfway up the summit ridge and then we traversed left. There were a couple of places where we needed to hunt around a bit before we were sure of where to go but we soon found our way. At the summit we took lots of photos and identified nearby peaks. The view from the summit was spectacular in all directions. Snowfield is far enough north to have clear views of Redoubt and Spickard and other northern peaks.
There was a fairly uniform high cloud layer in all directions with some storm clouds in the distance. The weather up north did not look pleasant and we hoped our friends who were climbing in BC were faring well. It had been windy at the notch west of the summit ridge so we expected that it would be even windier on the summit. Surprisingly, it was fairly calm on the summit. We headed back to our packs and found a flat spot just on the north side of the ridge where it was not so windy. Rod and Tina served great pastry summit treats. In the past I have usually brought chocolate-covered almonds as a summit treat but lately I have been experimenting with other fillings such as cherries, banana chips and macadamia nuts. This time I had brought chocolate-covered soy nuts which were received with as much enthusiasm as if I had offered up chocolate-covered eggplant chunks.
The descent was uneventful. I was concerned about my crampon but the duct tape repair job held. Back at camp, we said farewell to Carry who wanted to head out that evening. The rest of us had a leisurely evening. We ate dinner and talked about past present and future trips. I had been getting tired of the usual ramen noodles with tuna type of meal and I have never been a fan of dehydrated dinners. This season I had been experimenting with taking food that did not require cooking and that was also high in calories and protein in addition to being appetizing. As such the bulk of my rations consisted of half a pizza, three hamburgers (not wimpy fast food chain hamburgers but hefty grass-fed beef burgers on whole grain bread) and a chicken burrito. These rations worked well and I plan to use this technique on subsequent trips.
The next day on the hike back to the trailhead we were concerned about getting attacked by yellowjackets. Just above where we knew the yellowjackets to be lurking, Colt, Jim and I put on our shell layers and mosquito netting that we had been carrying. It was unpleasantly hot to hike with the extra layers but it would have been worth it if it prevented even one less sting. Curiously we did not see any yellowjackets although Rod who was ahead of us got stung on the hand. On the drive back home we stopped at the Skagit River Brewing Company in Mt. Vernon.
