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Intermediate Alpine Climb - Mount Buckner/North Face

Turned around due to rain/whiteout

Stephen Bobick Stephen Bobick
July 07, 2018
  • Road impassable/closed

  • Road  closed at Eldorado TH.  Add 2.5 mi and 900 foot gain to an already strenuous approach.

    Boston Basin trail is very overgrown, especially the first mile.  It is also eroded and a total mess.   I have been using this trail since 2004 and it is worse every year. Does the NPS do ANY maintenance or allow WTA in here?  

     

Friday afternoon the forecast called for 30% chance of showers tapering off by mid morning.  This forecast got updated on the morning of the climb to showers as late as 9pm.  We encountered showers and overcast skies on the drive in from Rockport onwards.  Boston Basin trail is very overgrown, especially the first mile.  Plants held water and we were absolutely soaked by the time we got to Boston Basin (at 12:15 pm).  All surrounding mountains were totally socked in from 6K up.  We put on all layers to get dry and waited over 2 hours for improvements.  We were treated to several "sucker windows" which were replaced by fog.  We even started up at one point only to see everything go white again and finally bailed at 4 pm.  Got to the cars around 7.

In our planning we had opted to camp on the Boston Glacier, approaching from the Quien Sabe.  In retrospect it would have been better to try and change our itinerary the morning of and hiked to Sahale Camp. This would have given us all night to camp and hope for weather improvements.  Not that we had attained permits the morning of Thursday - a day before the climb.