Went out to Cascade River Road over the weekend. The goal was to bag Klawatti, Austera, Primus, and Tricouni, then return back to the Eldorado Trailhead. With a late sunset, we got a relaxed 6am start and made decent work up through the Boulder Field. By mid-morning, we were skinning up the Eldorado Glacier, watching people post-hole through the slush. Soon we were below Eldorado and I talked to Climber Kyle & crew for a little bit. When I went up Eldorado last year it was in a near whiteout, so looking over at Moraine lake and Forbidden was stunning. Lots of parties were out as you’d expect from such a beautiful weekend.
Once we started the traverse over to Klawatti, we were alone. The sidehilling was tiring, especially on a splitboard, but the surrounding terrain made up for it. We put on trailrunners and scrambled up the South ridge of Klawatti. It was fun scrambling and we were at the top around 2, albeit now with wet feet. We descended back down and made a nice traverse over to Austera. With the hot sun, we skinned in the shade below a big rock. Our skin track probably looked a bit stupid to other parties once the sun moved.
Anyways, some shenanigans eventually brought us to the Austera summit. On the rappel through the gully, I had an awakening when a carabiner unclipped itself. Luckily we had two opposite and opposed, but it definitely shook me up for a second. We set up a nice bivy on the ridge below Austera and watched an avalanche pour over the cliffs on the McAllistar Glacier
On Sunday, we started the morning by skiing the Klawatti Glacier to get over to Primus and Tricouni. At the bottom of the ridge, the snow was already mush at 6am, over crevasses and cliffs. Knowing that this was our only exit option and that we’d be coming back out in the middle of the afternoon, we took a pause to think through our options. Wanting to make our parents proud, we decided to put skins on and head back out. Another ski party also followed suit.
The climb up the Klawatti Glacier was definitely nerving. The glacier was very smooth, but big whoomphs reminded us of the cracks we were walking over. I think it was just the recent snow settling under our weight, but it still wasn’t fun feeling the snow around me dropping an inch or two. The way out was just a lot more traversing. I thought about going up to ski the northeast face on Eldorado, but Cole just wanted to get out. I wasn’t feeling super stoked about it anyways, so off to the Eldorado glacier we went. A few thousand feet of slush got us to the boulder field where it was a toasty hike back to the car.
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