Intermediate Alpine Climb - Inspiration-McAllister-Klawatti Ice Cap Traverse

Trip Report

Initially, we planned to hike into Eldorado High Camp on Thursday but, with substantial rain in the forecast, we decided to leave Friday, hoping to miss some or most of the expected rain.  We found the typical log crossing about 200 yards west of the parking pullout.  Even on a cool, cloudy morning, the log was partially submerged under running water.

The climber's trail was steep and muddy but generally easy to follow.  We climbed through the boulder field, mostly following a trail on the climber's right side.  Multiple water sources on the approach, starting around 4500 ft elevation.  We hit the snowline at 5800 ft and it was mostly continuous from there, although the gully between Eldorado and Roush Creek basins was snow free.  Minimal open crevasses on the Eldorado and Inspiration glacier approach to Eldorado High Camp.  After being told by the climbing rangers that the camp would likely be snow covered, we were happy to find the bivvy sites melted out and snow free.  In addition, the solar toilet was melted out and usable and there was running water nearby the camp.  While we were setting up tents, rain and wind started up and we quickly retreated to our tents for the night.

The next morning we waited out a little more rain and low visibility until things started to improve mid morning.  We decided to head towards the Klawatti Col and see if we could climb Austera and/or Klawatti before the weather deteriorated again.  We made a high traverse from Eldorado High Camp to Klawatti Col, losing and gaining minimal elevation.

We decided to go for Austera Peak first, since it was the farthest away and then decide whether to climb Klawatti on the way back.  We made a rising traverse, now on the McAllister glacier to a low notch on the ridge between Klawatti and Austera.  From here we made a 40' rappel to the Klawatti glacier.  There was a 3 piton anchor with old rap tat but we decided to rap from a horn we slung with a cordellete, which we retrieved after climbing the gully on the way back.

We made another rising traverse on the Klawatti Glacier to the base of Austera through intermittent clouds and sun breaks.  It's a deceptively long way from Klawatti to Austera.   After leaving the glacier, we had about 200 vertical feet of exposed class 4 scrambling to the summit.

After getting back on the Klawatti glacier, we traversed back to the low notch and pitched out the gully climb back to the McAllister glacier.  The pitch is probably 5.5-5.6.  After traversing back to Klawatti Col, we considered climbing the SW Ridge but, due to our late start, long trip out to Austera and back, and intermittent visibility, we decided to save it for another time and made the long traverse back to Eldorado High Camp.

On our final day, we woke up to perfect bluebird weather.  We planned to climb Dorado Needle.  We roped up and crossed the Inspiration glacier again over to the Inspiration-McAllister Col.

We dropped 500 vertical down the McCallister glacier and then regained it up to the base of the NW ridge route.  The first pitch was a steep snow climb up, protected with a couple pickets, to gain the rocky ridge.

The rock climb is two pitches of mid 5th class climbing with one short, well protected crux near the summit.

The crux comes right before the summit.  As reported on other sites, a block broke off several years ago, turning the crux from 5.4ish to a now harder wide crack narrowing at the top.  It's short, easy to protect and probably 5.7.  There are some face holds, so no offwidth technique needed.

From the summit, there is an awkward, very short rappel to get down over the crux to the next rappel station, so we ended up down leading and cleaning the crux  back to the next rappel station instead, which was probably harder than climbing it on the way up.  Two more awkward traversing ridge rappels to get to the top of the snow pitch and then one more rappel to where we left our glacier gear.  We reversed our course over the McAllister and Inspiration glaciers back to Eldorado High Camp, packed up and made the tedious slog back down to the Eldorado TH.  It was very hot by the time we got back to the Cascade river but the log  had about the same amount of water running over it, so the crossing was pretty uneventful. 

Although variable weather prevented us from climbing everything we planned, we still maximized our weather window and had some great climbing in a spectacular area.

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