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Trip Report    

Silver Star Mountain/Silver Star Glacier

Made the summit with a strong team: snow on summit block, plus falling wet snow under near white-out conditions, only added to the sense of adventure.

  • Road suitable for all vehicles

Camped on bench at 6400' - bench was entirely snow covered (2' to 4') except for tree wells.  Left camp at 5:45 am sunday morning.  Took the gully up to Burgundy Col, which was snow until the top ~100', but is thinning quickly.  Roped up before the Silver Star glacier, but didn't see any crevasses.  Arrived at the col between E. and W. summits around 10:00, just as another party of 6 was beginning their summit push.  Steadily falling wet snow made the rock slippery.  As the other party began individually top-roping each member up the chimney move on the left side of summit block and asked us to stay clear, we contoured around to the right, with most climbers prusiked onto a single glacier line, and found the easier way up, which was still spicey due to the wet, snowy rock and near white-out conditions.  (No views.)

A single, 20 m rappel got as back to safe footing and we downclimbed back to the col between the summits, again all prusiked onto a single rope.  From there we traveled unroped back to camp, arrived by 2:30 pm, then an hour to pack up, and back at cars a couple hours later.  

Took four pickets, used none.  Took a set of nuts and a couple hexes, used a couple each to protect team on slippery summit rock.