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Trip Report    

Intermediate Alpine Climb - Mount Logan/Fremont Glacier

A strenuous three-day trip with a fit team.

Stephen Bobick Stephen Bobick
August 04, 2016
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Approach trail is maintained all the way to the turnoff near 5800' at Park Creek Pass.  From here the rising traverse involves a climber's trail that merges with a spider web network of game trails and eventually peters out near the 'sandy gully'.

    Continuous snow did not start until about 7800'.  The glacier is smooth with no cracks showing.  The hogsback feature was in poor shape, quickly melting out.  Runout at the top to the left and right is bad, dropping into a moat, and the transition to rock was marginal.  The first 40 feet of scrambling is on loose kitty litter and unpleasant.  Above this all is great, and the scramble is snow free to the summit.

    There was no register on the summit.

Half the party arrived late.  We were lucky to get a permit.  Note that only 8 folks can stay at Thunder Basin TH. We had 5 folks and 4 were already issued a permit, so we could not stay there.  NCNP will not make exceptions and you can not split the party.  The Stock Camp can only take 4 even though the site has copious room for more.  They made an exception for us here.

We left he TH at 10:15 and arrived at camp at 8:45.  Two of our party, myself included, were affected by the heat which slowed us by about an hour.  The stock crossing had deep, fast moving water so we crossed at a nearby log, which is 10-15 feet above the water.  One of us walked across and the rest butt-scooted.

Summit day was long - 15 hours total.  It took 9 hours to summit and we summitted right at our turnaround time of 3 pm.  We got to camp at dusk.  Parties can safely get to camp if they get to at least the turnoff from the trail by dusk.

The very start of the traverse involved two significant stream crossings.  One required deviating from the climber's trail to be safe.  The other required staying ON the trail.  The rest of the traverse is easy but parties should pay attention to the features on the way in and go out the same way using those features.  It is tempting to drop too quickly on the way out and the traverse is gradually descending.

The first 4th class move is intimidating, especially if you are unsure you are on route.  There are three lines up this block, all adjacent.  Two of our party took the right most which is exposed class 4.  I took the middle line and the others followed.  It is safer.  On the way out we all took the left line (chimney like entrance).  Look at summitpost.org for a picture.

After the step traverse easy talus.  We had little snow here and avoided it.  We did NOT have to summit any subsummits or downclimb like some TRs describe.  We got right to the notch and from here did the final class 4 section without ropes or any difficult.

We downclimbed the route.  No rappelling was required.