Start date 20230701
End date 20230704
Posted on

Group gear

  • Everyone
    • Picket, harness, prusiks, pulley, etc for glacier travel
  • Connor
    • 30m static rope
  • Andrew
    • 35m dynamic rope
    • Nuts and a few slings (for low 5th on Spire and Mixup)
    • 4 webbings for replacing rappel anchors
  • Alexis
    • 1-person tent for Connor

Most probable itinerary

As of Friday, this summarized bullet list below is most likely what I think we’d do (everything else further down is outdated but potentially variations we’d try).

  • Saturday (9.1 miles, 5,900 ft gain)
    • 5:20 AM – Drive to Cascade Pass Trailhead (2:40 hr drive)
    • 8:00 AM – Trailhead
    • 8:10 AM – Hike to Kool-Aid Lake (5.6 miles, 3,400 ft gain, 5 hours)
    • 1:10 PM – Kool-Aid Lake, set up camp
    • 2:00 PM – Scramble Magic Mountain and Hurry-Up Peak (right next to camp, 3.5 miles, 2,500 ft gain, 3 hrs?)
    • 5:00 PM – Back at lake
  • Sunday (~9 hr day, 10.2 miles, 5,570 ft gain)
    • White Rocks (with side-scramble to Le Conte, 1 mile, 770 ft gain)
  • Monday (8.5 miles, 5,600 ft gain)
    • Climb Spire then ditch gear at Itswood (3.5 miles, 2,600 ft gain)
    • From Itswood, scramble Dome (5 miles RT, 3,000 ft gain)
    • Maybe move camp down to lake (1 mile)
  • Tuesday (11-12 miles)

Saturday – Kool-Aid Lake

5.6 miles, 3,400 ft gain, 5 hrs? Does have some glacier travel? ~30% snow covered.

Climbs

  • Climb East Face of Mixup (class 5): +4 hours?
  • Climb Magic Mountain (class 3-4) (right next to camp): +3 hours?
    • From Kool-Aid Lake ascend 1,000 feet to the col separating Magic Mountain and Hurry Up Peak. Gain south ridge and climb to the false summit.  Find a dirty gully on right and drop down 80 feet to gain Class 3-4 broken ledges that corkscrew the east side of summit. (source)
  • Also climb Hurry-Up Peak (class 3) after Magic Mountain +1 hour
  • Continuing to Yang Yang camp is 4.25 more miles, 2,000 ft gain, +3 hrs?

If we started hiking at 8 AM and did Magic+Hurry-Up, we’d get to camp at 5 PM. If we had to walk the road, we’d get to camp at 6:30 PM.

Weather @ Trailhead: Low of 43, then high of 59, winds 5-14 mph
Weather @ Kool-Aid Lake: Low of 41, then high of 53, and then overnight low of 38. 9-16 mph winds.

Sunday – White Rocks Lake

9.2 miles, 4,800 ft gain, 6-7 hrs? Has glacier travel. ~75% snow covered.

Or if on Saturday we made it to Yang Yang, maybe Sunday we go to Dome peak (9 miles, 6,200 ft gain), and then 2.5 miles back to Itswood Ridge Camp? And Monday we climb Spire (2 miles, 2,000 ft gain)?

Or same thing Saturday to Yang Yang, but Sunday we do Spire and then camp at Itswood (8.5 miles, 5,400 ft gain total), more reasonable. And then Monday we do Dome (5 miles RT, 3,000 ft gain) and then move camp down to the lake.

  • Maybe Climb Sentinel (class 4, might want rappel): +2 hours?
    • Really rotten rock/choss pile, might have impassable moat depending on snow coverage too… Doesn’t seem like any impressive views either. Le Conte is prolly better?
    • On to Sentinel I went, with the final trudge to the top of the snow on the west face seeming to take place within some kind of time dilation corridor. I reached the base of the ledge a little before 7. I decided to go straight up the west step/ledge system right from the snow ledge below the bergshrund. This option felt pretty spicy to me as I found few positive holds with a few loose ones sprinkled in. I had spotted a cordolette with quicklink partway up this feature maybe 20′ above the snow. It seemed positioned a little like someone’s oh sh!t bail gear. I delicately worked up the ledges to relative safety at the base of the ramp proper. They stayed in the back of my mind as I traversed the W face along the ledge to reach the easy scree and talus scramble to reach the summit.
    • A quick tag and I was back down to face my exit problem, without benefit of my gear lying on a rock safe at camp. I found that heading past the steps to the toe of the main ledge brought me closer to the snow, but with unappealing options that involved scrambling over a polished kitty-litter strewn section and a few feet of less polished but wet steps, both with exposure to the moat. The same moat I had kicked a rock or three into and heard rattle down for an uncomfortably long interval of time. The third option was a descending traverse back to the west-facing steps, this unfortunately seeming the best option. I managed to make the necessary careful movements downwards to within 5 feet of the snow and jumped onto it. A shout of victory, a salute to the mountain’s well played game, and I was cruising the snow back to reach camp before 9. All the while invoking the bear god to have left some of my food for me since I neglected to use a bear can to secure my food stash.
  • Maybe Le Conte (class 4, no rope, 1 mile, 770 ft gain)… +1-2 hours
    • All three trip reports say spicier than expecting…
    • It appears there are a couple different routes up. We ascended the permanent snowfield on the east face and then zig-zagged up some loose class 2/3 ledges to get to the northern summit ridge about 150′ from the top. At this point it becomes quite exposed ridge climbing (low class 4) with some rotten lichen rock until you get to the summit. Basically we tried to stick to Brad’s GPS track.
    • Another couple was on the summit when we started climbing, but they ascended and descended a different route coming up the northeast face. They were able to descend quite quickly so this may be a better option, although it appeared there were some class 3/4 slabs right before the ridge crest that may have required extra thought to ascend/descend.
    • The view of the South Cascade Glacier is unmatched and the peak can be done in 1-2 hours from leaving the Ptarmigan Traverse so I would highly recommend.

Weather @ White Rocks Lake: High of 54, then overnight low of 42. 3-9 mph winds.

Monday – Cub Lake

4 miles, 2,300 ft gain, 3 hours? Some glacier travel. ~60% snow covered.

With Spire: Adds 0.5 miles, 500 ft gain. Two pitches of 5.easy. +2 hours?

With Dome: Would be 7 miles, 3,700 ft gain total, 5-6 hours?

Weather near Spire: High of 53, 5-11 mph winds.

Weather @ Cub Lake: High of 65, then overnight low of 48. 5-10 mph winds.

Tuesday – Car

11 miles, 1,100 ft gain (basically all downhill), 8 hours? Hike a few nice miles, then a rough 3-6 miles of bushwacking, and then finally 6 miles of easy flat trail on Downey Creek. ~0% snow covered.

Weather midway down: High of 75.

Alt itinerary

  • Saturday (13.35 miles, 7,900 ft gain, but 3.5 miles and 2,500 ft of the gain is a scramble without camp gear)
    • 8:00 AM – Start hiking (5 hrs)
    • 1:00 PM – Kool-Aid Lake, ditch gear
    • 1:30 PM – Scramble Magic+Hurry-Up (3 hrs)
    • 4:30 PM – Back at lake, grab gear
    • 5:00 PM – Continue to Yang Yang Lake (3 hrs)
    • 8:00 PM – Camp at Yang Yang
  • Sunday
    • Climb Spire then camp at Itswood (8.5 miles, 5,400 ft gain, prolly a <12 hr day)
  • Monday (6 miles, 3,000 ft gain, prolly a <7 hr day)
    • Climb Dome (5 miles RT, 3,000 ft gain)
    • Move camp down to lake (1 mile)
  • Tuesday (11 miles)