Ah, wonderful memories!
mjirving wrote:What's your estimation for the pace/time to get through that tricky section on the east side for planning purposes?
The tricky section is what I would describe as the section from Avalanche Valley to Sunrise Camp. No trail whatsoever.
I looked at the time stamp of my pictures for that trip and it looks like we did that stretch in under four hours. We were not going super fast or super slow. I slowed the others guys down, but only just a little bit.
mjirving wrote:Is the steep glacier/snow field travel any easier going one way or the other?
I’ve only done it once, and we went uphill. I had micro-spikes and they had full crampons. It was much easier than I thought it was going to be.
mjirving wrote:Do you think it would be advisable to hit the snow in the late afternoon to avoid it being particularly icy? Or asked another way, would it be pretty sketchy if it were hit first thing in the morning? How sketchy would you say it really was for you?
The glacier surface was slightly melted when we did it, which made for good traction. If it was hard frozen, going downhill would be scary. We were on the glacier from about 10:30 AM to until about 11:15 AM. We skirted around on the rocks on the left side of the glacier until we had to walk on it.
mjirving wrote:I'm looking to do it the weekend of 8/8 which I'm guessing in this low snow year shouldn't be too much of a problem. (Assuming all the forests aren't on fire!)
Probably should be doable then. Bring mosquito repellant.
Other comments:
- Use my tracks to help with the section with no trail. There are areas where you want to try and stay near 6400’ until it becomes obvious where to go. Track:
http://gpsfly.org/g/3103
- Cross the Big Muddy further away from the source than we did. Rocks were coming down from the glacier.
- I would like to do that trip again, but take more time to enjoy it. We blasted through it pretty quick.
- Take a side trip up to Devils Garden if you get the chance. It’s worth it.