Kevin K, Lisa, Jim and I camped at the Colonial Creek Campground in order to get an early start on the traverse. After doing the car shuttle, we headed out on the Thunder Creek trail.
We were supposed to cross Thunder Creek on the bridge leading into McAllister Campground but the bridge was washed out. We hiked passed the old bridge looking for a log across the river. About a 1/4 mile upstream, we found a log jam.
The log jam was pretty easy to cross until the very last section which included crawling over a very large root ball.
At this point, we took a break in the trees. We all felt the crux of the trip was over with. We should have no other big problems… but we were wrong.
Once across the creek, we headed back down river to McAllister Campground. Just before the campground, we located the climbers path which took us 4000 feet up a very steep ridge. 6 hours later we reach a high bench with a snow patch. This would be camp for the night.
The next morning, we headed further up the ridge. We soon found ourselves looking directly at Tricouni and Primus Peaks.
They were so close but there was a half melted lake between us and the col between the peaks. We had to take the long way around.
After a couple of hours, we were finally on the glacier traversing over to the col between the two peaks.
Once at the col, we quickly dropped packs and started up Primus Peak. About 3/4 of the way up the peak, we hit a steep snow field. We had left our ice axes at the col. Lisa was smart enough to turn around here. Kevin, Jim, and I crossed the snow field down low and then started looking for a way up through the rocks. In the end, the rock route turned out to be quite fun.
We could see a thunderstorm building in the distance so we left the summit sooner than we had wanted. We were able to get down the rocks before it began to hail. The snow field went better than we had thought and soon we were working our way back down to the col. About 200 feet from the col, it started to rain. Really rain.
When we arrived at the col, we found that Lisa had put up her 2 man tent so we all huddled inside. The storm continued for over an hour. We were all getting cold when the rain started to let up so we quickly broke camp and dropped to the moraine below which turned out to be a lovely camp.
From where we were camped, it looked as if we could easily climb the North Klawatti Glacier. In the morning, we roped up and head up the glacier.
Our main obstacle was a snow finger we needed to climb. When Jim was finally able to get to the snow finger, he discovered it was very thin. Way to thin to support our weight. After spending several minutes looking for away around, we decided to retreat and look for a route up the rocks.
Kevin found a ramp with loose rock so Jim lead a rock pitch. The climbing was slow because the rock was loose and there was water coming down the ramp. Once up the rock, we found ourselves back on the North Klawatti Glacier just in time for a lunch break.
The traverse of the upper portion of the North Klawatti Glacier went very quickly. Soon we had traversed around Austera Peak and were headed towards Klawatti Peak.
Klawatti Peak is very spectacular. The climb of Klawatti is a bit tricky so we would need to bypass it on this trip.
We did need to make a few climbing moves to get through a notch of the ridge coming off Klawatti. It was actually a lot easier than it looked.
Once over the ridge, we had a beautiful view of Tepeh Towers and Dorado Needles. The notch between the two ridges marks the start of the Isolation Traverse. But first we had to drop Lisa off at Eldorado Peak.
We cut between Klawatti and Tepeh Towers then headed toward Eldorado.
Our camp on the shoulder of Eldorado was quite comfortable with amazing views of Forbidden Peak.
In the morning, Lisa, Jim, and I climbed Eldorado. We were just over a 1000 feet from the summit and I had never climbed it. About halfway up the peak, the clouds came in. We didn’t realize at the time that we would spend the next 4 days in and out of the clouds.
We returned to camp just as Kevin was waking up. After packing up and saying goodbye to Lisa, we headed back across the Eldorado Glacier following our steps from the day before. We arrived the gap in Tepeh Towers sooner than we expected. We were blessed with a break in the clouds.
As soon as we started to drop down towards the col between Tepeh Towers and Dorado Needles, we were engulfed in clouds. Luckily Dorado Needle was climbed the day before by another party so we were able to follow their tracks safely down the glacier to the col.
The cloud was annoying but we still encountered some wonderful rock features.
After a miserable couple of hours of traversing wet vegetation and climbing through trees, we arrived on the plateau below Backbone Ridge. We declared the first flat spot on the moraine as camp. We went to bed that night still in the cloud guessing at what we would be looking at if we could see across the valley.
At 5:15 the next morning, Jim announced that we were above the clouds and had a view.
Kevin and I quickly got up (as quickly as Kevin and I move in the morning). We all enjoyed breakfast above the clouds.
By the time we left camp, the valley fog had risen to get us.
The traverse of The Backbone went well but we all were bummed that we were missing the views.
Every time we felt that the fog was clearing and the sun was getting hot, more fog would come up from the valley and basically rain on us.
Finally we had completed the traverse of The Backbone and began a decent out of the clouds.
At the bottom of the snow couloir, we all enjoyed a boots off break. Happy to be out of the fog and enjoying our view of the McAllister Glacier and the Inspiration Traverse which we had completed just 2 days before.
We had one more ridge to climb up and over before we could camp for the day. It was steep but went fairly well. Once we reached the ridge crest, we were treated to an amazing view of Wilcox Lakes. What a beautiful place! We wondered how many people had ever seen this place.
Kevin took the quick way down a steep snow slope while Jim and I traversed around the top of the basin. By the time Jim and I had reached the upper tarn, Kevin had already put the tent up.
Since the clouds were currently gone, Jim and I took the opportunity to hike up to the ridge and enjoy the view.
Not only were the views amazing but this area is full of tarns. Too bad it wasn’t warm enough to bath in any of them. I could really use a shower. There were well over 10 tarns on this ridge.
This next morning we woke to the view of clouds from our tent. Kevin and I had a difficult time getting motivated to get going.
Today, we had to climb up and over Isolation Peak. I had read the easiest way to get around the peak was over the summit.
We enjoyed hiking by all the tarns and through grassy meadows…
… before we headed up the heather covered ridge.
When we reached the summit, we found ourselves completely surrounded by fog. This could make the decent a bit interesting.
We had to do a lot of forward / backward to get off the upper part of the mountain. Once we had the snow filled bench in view, we were able to drop straight down and cruise off the mountain via a snow ramp.
As we descended out of the cloud, we got our first look at Isolation Lake (It has no name on the map so we gave the lake a name.)
The lake was out of the clouds and so inviting. Kevin decided to do some wading.
Jim and I decided to hike up the basin a little bit more to get a better view before taking a break.
Once Kevin rejoined us, we decided to camp sooner than later. We were still about a mile from the camp we wanted but if we camped here by the lake we would not be in the clouds. Looking up the basin, you could tell our originally scheduled camp was definitely in the clouds.
As we walked through the basin, we encountered a REALLY big rock which warranted an imprompto geology lesson.
As we setup camp, the clouds hovered right above us but never settled into camp.
We enjoyed a wonderful dinner on a rock outcropping watching the clouds clear over the Inspiration Traverse.
We woke early and found our route to Snowfield Peak cloud free.
We were finally able to see the summit of Isolation Peak.
We packed up and left camp but not quick enough. Within an hour, the low land fog had risen to get us. But unlike the days prior, the cloud layer actually burned off. We were all so happy to be enjoying the views of the area.
When we reached the col beneath Snowfield Peak, we all noticed a climbers path leading to the summit. This was our first evidence of humans since we left Dorado Needles 3 days ago.
The scramble up Snowfield was fun and a nice break from the traverse. We all enjoyed the views.
We returned to the col where we had left our big packs, roped up for the glacier, and headed out across the snow. Then it started to rain. It rained off and on the rest of the day.
We did enjoy some near views of Paul Bunyans Stump, Pinnacle Peak, and Pyramid Peak.
As well as this interesting ice formation in Colonial Lake (melted glacier).
We had planned to camp way down on the ridge to make our last day really short but there was no snow on the ridge. After dropping just a few hundred feet down the ridge, we all decided we had to camp or we would not have any water.
Kevin found a semi-level heather bench to pitch his mega-mid. We used a lot of gear to create level sleeping pads. Then ate our last dinner. Just as dinner was over, it started to rain again driving us into the tent and to bed sooner than we had wanted.
We were up a little after 5am. We packed quickly. Before heading down the ridge to find our car, I had to take one more picture of our group with Colonial Peak.
If the cloud wasn’t there, the picture would have Colonial Peak in it.
The weather may not have been ideal but none of us regret doing the traverse. It was a fabulous adventure through landscape that few people ever visit. It was wonderful to see how untouched nature can be.
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