Trip Report
Basic Glacier Climb - Snowfield Peak/Neve Glacier
Spectacular 2-day climb of Snowfield Peak above the clouds.
tadashi kibe
- Sat, Jun 14, 2025 — Sun, Jun 15, 2025
- Basic Glacier Climb - Snowfield Peak/Neve Glacier
- Snowfield Peak/Neve Glacier
- Climbing
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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- Parking lot for the Pyramid Lake TH is a pullout on the left side of HWY 20 just shy of Diablo Lake.
- Climber's trail after you pass Pyramid Lake is easy to follow but relentless. Previous trip reports call this a bushwhack but the Clark/Luahna trail was much more of a bushwhack than this. Bugs were equally relentless within the treeline.
- There are some flat spots at around 4250' that appear to be good lunch spots, but they are not. There are some ponds nearby that are home to maybe a billion mosquitos. Go up a little further to around 4500' for a much nicer spot with pano views of Jack Mountain and glimpse of Colonial Creek.
- Consistent snow starting at about 5500'. I switched out of approach shoes to mountaineering boots at this point.
- The lake at the base of the Colonial Glacier is beginning to thaw and open up. I had a previous GPX track that crossed over the lake, but we instead followed the rock band at low camp and navigated around the lake.
- NCNP updated the permit mapping so now all campsites fall within the Colonial permit zone.
- Multiple running water sources at low camp (5800').
- Multiple running water sources at the Neve Saddle (6800').
- Crevasses beginning to open up on the Neve Glacier, largest one we crossed over was several inches wide.
- Crampons not needed after you hit the scramble section at 7700'.
This was a 2-day climb of Snowfield Peak via the Neve Glacier. We met at the Pyramid Lake TH at 9AM, disbursed group gear and quickly set off. The climber's trail after you get to Pyramid Lake is relentlessly steep. Pretty easy trail to follow but also narrow and overgrown in some areas.
You get out of the treeline at around 5600' and that is where you get the first views of low camp, Colonial Peak, and Pyramid Peak. A cloud was covering the Colonial basin but the views were still incredible. We encountered consistent snow at 5500' and transitioned to mountaineering boots.
We sidehilled our way across the base of Pyramid Peak. This area was the only area with rockfall risk. There was a fallen tree on the route that appeared on our way out, but was fortunately uneventful as we made our away across. Snow was soft enough that crampons were not needed.
The winds really picked up once we got into the cloud and made it to the lake. The weather forecasts were showing 5-10mph winds but we were getting blasted with 20-30mph gusts. We contemplated setting up camp here because the rock shelters were well built and we knew the camp site at the Neve Saddle was very small but the group decided to push on and check out the saddle. Low camp hosts 3 large sites with plenty of running water.
I had a GPX track from a past climb that was done around the same time of year showing that group crossing the lake, but the lake was thawing around the edges. We navigated around the lake following the rock band at low camp. Another climber traversed low around the edge of the lake, but it seemed easier to stay high and follow some cairns before transitioning back to the snow. One last hard push up the steep snowfield and we arrived at the Neve Saddle. It was cloud covered and windy but we managed to make a snow shelter off to climber's upper left of the one campspot at the saddle. The winds died down into the evening but the clouds persisted into the night. We caught occasional glimpses of Paul Bunyans Stump and Pinnacle Peak though.
We woke up at 3:30AM to an eerily quiet mountain with not a single cloud in the sky. Out of camp at 4:30AM to our first views of Snowfield Peak. Coming down the saddle is fairly steep, in order to not lose too much elevation, we traversed left instead of heading straight down to the Neve Glacier.
At 6600', the Neve Glacier flattens out and we observed a number of crevasses beginning to open up. We navigated around most but crossed maybe 15-20 very small ones until we got off the glacier.
As we progressed further across the Neve, we were greeted with a burning red sunrise over an incredible inversion layer.
We dropped 1 rope and ice axes at 7700'. There is a nice step to get on to the scramble portion of the peak. Some previous trip reports mentioned bringing a small rack of cams/nuts in case students want a handline for the scramble section. I had brought half a rack of pro just in case but it was not needed as we had a solid group of scramblers.
There is an easy path that leads up to a large notch. We didn't follow the Mountaineers beta but instead went the alternate route and went up and over the large notch then scrambled up an obvious gully to the summit. There is loose scree in this gully but it was easily navigable and no one in our party had issues going up or down unassisted.
We topped out at the summit at around 7AM to unbelievable views. An inversion layer as far as the eye can see with all the mountains poking through the clouds. Not even a breeze to keep our summit experience short. It was truly a perfect summit.
The group made short work of the scramble down. We roped back up and crossed the Neve Glacier back to camp. The group noted how much larger the crevasses had grown from when we crosse them earlier in the morning. We packed up camp and made the long trek back to the cars. We had planned to try for Neve Peak if we had time and energy, but the clouds on approach day prevented that from happening. Regardless, a spectacular climb with a wonderful group.
- Car to Camp: 8.5hrs
- Camp to Summit: 2.5hrs
- Summit to Camp: 2hrs
- Camp to Cars:5.5hrs
