8,868 feet
July 13-14, 2002
"Big Top Murray"
I eagerly rushed out the door on Friday, with my WAC 2002 Climbing Class diploma in hand, anxious for my first glacier climb since being released into the world. Our trip organizer, Ema, sent me on a mission to acquire the climbing permit for Eldorado Peak. I had to be at the Marblemout Ranger Station by 8:00, and I left Seattle at 4:45. Things went smoothly at first until just before I reached Everett, at which point I slowed to an average speed of somewhere around 0.7 miles per hour. Over the next 10 miles, I sweated and stressed over the quickly lapsing time and the gradually rising temperature of my car. Sitting there in the sweltering heat, as the logjam of cars creaked and moaned forward, I began to question my decision to get a job, which would deprive me of these precious moments.
I eventually arrived at the station around 7:20 and obtained the necessary document. After hopelessly attempting to understand the logic behind needing a Forest Pass to park at the National Park trailhead, I bid farewell to the Park Ranger, and met Mike & Doerte at Goodell Campground.
Saturday morning we all met at the Ranger Station, where we discovered the inevitable had occured, a group of Mountaineers, equal in size to our own, was also bound for Eldorado. Desiring to avoid any conflicts with them, we reviewed the rule of conduct for encounters with Mountaineers: Leave Randy at home. Check.
We arrived at the trailhead with few problems, other than learning en route that despite hailing from the home of the autobahn, Wolfgang and Ursula never acquired the skill of driving fast on dirt forest road.
We set out on the trail at 8:45, and quickly came to our first obstacle, the log bridge across the creek. As we approached the raging river, Scott began to inform it of its legal rights should any of us incur injuries while crossing it, but, upon realizing that it was in fact a raging river and not just a rapidly flowing river, he stripped off his conservative attire to reveal leather and spikey things, pulled out a pint of Jim Beam and began singing "Welcome to the jungle, we've got fun and games..." at the top of his lungs. After Jen beat Scott's ghetto blaster to a violent death, everyone was able to relax and we headed across. Demonstrating very quickly my novicity, I managed to drop both my water bottle and my radio, nearly losing them in the creek.
Once safely across we bushwhacked for a few minutes before starting up the steep trail. We marveled at this trail so noticably absent of switchbacks. In the muggy heat I privately regreted slandering Rob in the Tooth TR, as it appeared that this act had come full circle and turned me into something resembling a wet sponge in a taffy pulling machine.
Hoping for something encouring to anticipate, we occasionally radioed ahead to Mike & Doerte about a half hour ahead of us. We would inquire about the trail description, and Doerte would sweetly repeat the phrase, "It gets steeper, but it's good trail" each time, reminding me of the way my mom would try to make me take cough syrup as a kid.
After a couple hours we reached the 1st of three talus fields. It required great concentration to negotiate the choss in my plastic boots, and consumed copious amounts of energy to keep from whacking Andy with my pack lid as he pranced across the rocks in his tenny runners.
Picking our way through the big rocks, following frequent cairns and some trail, we reached the snowline at the lower camping area around 5400 feet. Happy that after 4 hours of hiking, my plastic boots were finally going to prove useful, I gleefully removed the shells and let me feet unwind. Bastard replaced his tennis shoes with plastics. Deb hooked up to a dialysis machine to remove BAC from her bloodstream from the night before. Murray briefly removed his bandana to check on the progress of his soon-to-become-famous chrome dome tan.
The Mountaineers emerged onto the snow about an hour later, the odor of ten essentials and rigid climbing bureaucracy drifting up on the wind to us, alerting us that it was time to get moving. We proceeded upward and ascended the steep grade onto a ridge separating Roush Creek Basin from Eldorado Creek Basin. Upon reaching the ridge, the guidebook description indicated that we were to "descend on obvious gully" onto the Eldorado Glacier. We all shared a bitter laugh at the obviously collaborated effort of all guidebook authors to perpetuate the use of this deceptively useless phrase. Undoubtedly Oliver Stone is somehow involved. This phrase, which arouses enough skepticism on its own, becomes even less indicative of reality when combined with another phrase such as "marked by large boulder" especially when the entire area you are searching is composed of large boulders.
We found the gully and descended it without too much trouble, although occasional cries of "I'm such a big wanker" and "please make it stop" were heard with striking German accents.
After following the lateral moraine for a while, we roped up in preparation for the ascent up the glacier. Deb made some sort of inquiry, to which Murray offered his priceless and seemingly universal advice, "Just sit down, cross your legs, and be gentle."
We slogged up the glacier to the broad, level area at 7500 feet where we were to camp, and Mike & Doerte greeted us with Mai Tais while we posed for photos with the ship's captain. After tossing him and his worthless ship overboard, we promptly set up our tents and began melting snow and cooking dinner. At this point grave concern grew within the group as we realized that there were no Whisper Lites in the party. We held a pow wow and debated whether or not this was cause for concern. None of us had ever been on a trip where there were no Whisper Lites, and Scott proposed that we abort the climb, citing this as an obvious objective hazard.
Unable to reach a consensus on the matter, we consulted Ema's ouijee board. We sat in a circle around it, hands reaching out to it like a hokey pokey, when if finally responded, "It's a boy." We obviously were a little confused, and Andy suggested the ouijee board was not effective above 7,000 feet. But Deb deciphered this cryptic message, applying the following reasoning: "Brad Pitt is a boy. He drove an El Camino in "The Mexican." "El Camino" sounds kind of like "Eldorado," especially if you say it with a gruff, exaggerated "Mexican accent" like Brad Pitt did in the movie." After a brief pause to absorb this, there was much rejoicing as we began to understand her wisdom and realized that this peak would fall, Whisper Lite or not. It was however, a bittersweet revelation for Murray who wept in dismay at the fact that he humped 20 oz. of white gas for no reason.
In the midst of his grief, Murray tore off his bandana, prompting an uproar laughter from everyone, including himself, at his astoundingly bizarre tan line which made him look a little like Dr. Mindbender from G.I. Joe. Or a scoop of neopolitan ice cream.
Post dinner boredom set in, which I observed leads to a few interesting things on glaciers: 1) People marvel at glacier worms; 2) They discuss the invalid points of "Vertical Limit;" and 3)They build massive snow walls. This latter behavior is especially common when the wind picks up a bit and clouds move in, as happened that evening. Despite building these walls with impressive size and swiftness, our efforts were to be thwarted by the wind, cloud moisture and mild temperatures throughout the night. By morning, just enough of the walls remained to remind us of our foolishness the night before -- kind of like waking up with a bad hangover and finding a strange phone number in your pocket. Not that I know about these things.
I awoke briefly at 5:00 Sunday morning and peeked outside the tent. I could barely see the other tents through the whiteout, so I went back to sleep. At 5:30 Andrew walked around knocking on tents crying "Leeettt's go climbing!" in the style of Pat O'Brien. I overcame my skepticism and looked outside to discover it was perfectly clear. Did it burn off that quickly? Was my perception altered by my desire to sleep longer? Was it an altitude induced hallucination? Wonder will loiter in my mind like bubbles in an IV.
It was a chilly morning and the leisurely, almost catatonic, pace of getting ready for the summit push contrasted sharply to the frenzied, anxious ritual on Baker. We headed out at about 7:00, 15-30 minutes after the Mountaineers. We were both pleased by this and a little disappointed. It would be nice following their steps, but there is also very little room at the summit, and it was easy to foresee a potential conflict between our two large groups.
We descended down onto the Inspiration Glacier then started up again on the other side, reaching a break in the small rock ridge which cuts part way through the glacier. We passed through this and veered up the glacier following the north side of the ridge. We passed several crevasses along the way, some of them relatively harmless, while others looked like they could swallow a Fiat, which of course is ridiculous because a crevasse would never do that.
We reached the summit ridge shortly after the Mounties, despite pausing for 10 minutes or so to allow them time to get off the summit. We headed up the magnificently exposed knife-edge ridge of snow, with nice views of the glacier dropping away on both sides. Soon we donned our balaclavas and switched the ice axes to battle mode, as we prepared for a gruesome conflict. Thankfully, Mike & Doerte pointed out to the Mountaineers the obvious fact that they needed to wait for us to get off the knife edge before they could descend it, prompting a lecture about kinetic energy and conservation of mass from Professor Johnson. We reached a point where it was safe to step to the north side of the ridge and created a second lane around the Mountaineers.
Around 9:00 we all gathered at the small rock outcropping just past the true summit and enjoyed summit chocolate and fantastic views of the North Cascades. Baker, Shuksan, Forbidden, Sloan and Rainier were all clearly visible from this vantage point.
We descended back to camp, packed up and headed back to the parking lot. The descent was mostly uneventful. There were a few nice glissades. Andy successfully defended his title of most daring glissade. We stumbled down the talus fields, then down the steep trail, knees and quads screeching and pulsating like bad brakes, feet hotter than my engine crawling through Everett on Friday.
Back at the parking lot several people rinsed off in the river and Murray removed his bandana. He had rolled it up to make the top edge stop at his tan line in an effort to even it out. Fortunately, the bandana had slipped up on his forehead about an inch, leaving a glorious new logo: a brilliant white stripe running horizontally through his forehead. We enjoyed a hearty laugh and embarked on the groggy drive back to Tacos Pendejos. I successfully avoided the fish burritos this time. Murray, however, did not. He tragically misunderstood my warning about the burritos malos and thought I meant the fish tacos. Despite this unfortunate turn of events, we all left gruntled and joined the rest of the city returning to Seattle via I-5 south.
A more factually correct account of the trip can be found at: http://www.grandcanyontreks.org/eldorado.htm
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