Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Silver King
Nice snow scramble with good views and decent weather.
David Butler
- Sat, Jun 17, 2017
- Alpine Scramble - Silver King
- Silver King
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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The lower ski slopes were bare grass. Mostly snow by the time we got to Elizabeth lake. The snow conditions from the lake to the East ridge was fairly compact which made it somewhat challenging. I would estimate a T3 over the trip rated T2.
The whole group participated in route finding as none of us had been up there previously.
On the grassy ski slopes we encountered a herd of elk in the morning shortly after starting out. Weather was high clouds which was nice to keep the temperature down a little bit, it was a fairly warm day. High clouds still allowed for some pretty good views but the top of Rainier was obscured.
The route description says to descend from the Throne or Silver Queen but there was not enough snow for a good descent on that side. We went South instead and descended into Silver basin. Snow conditions there were pretty good and we got about 600 feet of glissading.