Basic Glacier Climb - Clark Mountain & Luahna Peak

Trip Report

With Tess Wendel, Michelle Peterson, Kyle Bretherton. 

We set out from the White River trailhead around 9am on Saturday and enjoyed a nice forest bath for the first 4 miles. 

The climb up to Boulder Pass was very sweaty but wildflowers and huckleberries sweetened the deal.

Given the late season, we were taking a bit of a gamble with glacier conditions, and had a lot of "what if it's not in OMG" conversations and my head was full of contingency plans as we motored up the smooth and numerous switchbacks to the pass. Fortunately, Michelle was very adamant that she wanted this to be a GLACIER climb - sometimes, optimism pays! Once we got to camp, Kyle and I dashed ahead to scout the glacier and found it to be looking as good as could be expected, with a clear route visible most of the way to the top. 

We left camp at 5:30am. The transition from the ridge to the glacier was very easy, and we had a smooth path between crevasses that were starting to open up everywhere.

The steepest bit was the ascent along the climber's left edge to gain the ramp above the icefall. Happily the snow was just the right consistency for secure cramponing and step kicking so it always felt safe. We used some pickets to protect the top of the pitch and the initial traverse over the icefall - why not, we had hauled the darn things all the way anyway! We did see some active rockfall and evidence of large rocks that had come off the ridge above us.

Once we arrived at the summit block, we left our glacier gear and started scrambling straight up the eastern edge of the south face. That turned out to be not the right move, as the terrain at the ridge top was way more exposed than seemed necessary.

We dropped back down and rounded the corner toward the scramble route, and found the easy and floriferous class 2 walkup to the summit. 

We got there at 10am (?). A parade of Bulger happy scramblers dropped by as we lounged at the top. 

The Richardson Glacier route toward Luahna was not really a thing anymore. It looked to be icy and receded away from ridge if you wanted to cross over there, or discontiguous on the SE face if you wanted to go that way (can someone show me how to turn these pictures?? lol).

Our options would have been to just join the scramble route right away, traversing around the SW ridge of Clark, or rounding the summit of Clark on the glacier around the N side and then joining the scramble route. The enthusiasm for this activity was subpar! We were having so much fun, why ruin it! 

On the way back, the highlight was a huge herd of goats that were hanging out along the top of the glacier. They scrambled up onto the ridge, with the crossing guard goats keeping a close eye on traffic. 

The descent of the steep glacier pitch did feel steeper than on the way up (I know it comes as a shock)  but also pretty secure thanks to the soft but not too soft snow. We deployed and redeployed our 4 pickets to make it feel comfy. The pickets were so secure that it was sometimes hard to  harvest them back out of the snow. 

We filled up on water in the lovely basin just north of Boulder Pass, and enjoyed lounge time in camp before the 11 mile hike out the next morning.

A great trip, delightful team, so much personal growth, and just plain fun!!!

GPX track:

https://caltopo.com/m/CH53506

Map