Little Tahoma/East Shoulder

Trip report for Little Tahoma East Shoulder, 2014-June 7/8
prepared by Alastair Brownlee, mentored leader of the trip

General Notes:-

We approached from the White River side and camped at 7570ft on the Meany Crest. We camped on dirt in pre-cleared rock circles which made life very comfortable. We found no running water at camp and had to melt snow as expected.

Weather Notes:-

Freezing level was 9000ft and above for the entire weekend, Sunny with a little cloud cover on Saturday, Sunday Morning was a little windy then blue skis and warm temps in the afternoon.

​Route Notes:-

We climbed the standard route, Fryingpan - Whitman - Gully on Climbers Left

Frying​pan Glacier has a lot of snow still, only one crevasse was seen. Snow was firm in the morning, but slushy by 2pm with boot penetration at least 6 inches to a foot.

Whitman had no visible open crevasses and the going was good on the assent. On the descent after Midday the conditions were slushy and conditions on the steeper section were becoming slightly unstable. One climber triggered wet loose slide involving the top 3 inches of slush ran at slow speed for 10 feet, this occurred as we plunge stepped down the steepest section of the Whitman. No other natural or climber triggered slides were noticed during the trip.

The Gully was mainly snow with one large rock section low down, we stayed roped up and used pickets where possible to protect the steeper sections. In the rock section we took in rope between the climbers to minimize rock fall caused by the rope dragging. We retraced our steps to descend and used a rap station located at the top of the gully entrance to belay down climbers on an icy and step section. The snow in places was very soft and plunging to the hip was not uncommon for the team.

The scramble between the summit ridge and the summit block is spicy, so we set an anchor and belayed out a lead who then set a handline for the rest of the group. This was time consuming but was considered the best way to deal with the short but very exposed class 4 scramble up to the true summit.

Gear Notes

3 x 30m glacier lines
6 x pickets (used all 6 in the gully)

Rock Pro:-
1 x #1 C4 (Used)
1 x #0.5 Link Cam (Used)
1 x Small Hex
5 x Med, Wired Nuts
Cordelette (Used)