Matt, Carla and I went in to climb Logan via the
Douglas Glacier this past weekend. We chose this route since it is the
shortest way to do this remote Cascade Classic peak, and this time of
year is reportedly the best time to do this route as much of the slide
alder should still be under the snow.
We started up the trail to Easy Pass Saturday ~10am. Snow was
encountered immediately, but were able to follow the trail for about a
mile before it was lost in the snow for good. We had no trouble
getting to the basin below the pass on generally firm snow, then booted
up to the pass in bright sun, where we had our first views of Logan.
I'd never been down the trail to Fisher Creek before; Matt and Carla had and both expressed surprise that the slope down to the creek
was still under snow, and there was some discussion as to the best way
down the steep slopes to the creek. After checking out a route to the
left we eventually bore right and descended several hundred feet before
encountering the trail mid-slope where there was less snow. We booted
down to the marker near the creek then turned west along Fisher Creek
and into the woods, paralleling the creek quite a ways in snow before
finally encountering the trail not far from where we were going to
leave it to cross the creek.
We found a good log crossing and headed south up valley to the east
of the tributary draining the glacier. Note that from Fisher Creek on,
this route has LOTS of running and standing water and is going to be
Bug Central very soon. In the upper valley is a fair bit of avalanche
debris that overall probably made the going a little easier, as it
wiped out some of the alder that otherwise would have been obstructing
the route. All told, we had no more than an hour of schwacking through
the alder, so this was definitely a good time to do this route. In a
normal snow year, it would be best done even earlier. Made camp at
4700'.
Except for on the far left, the entire basin below the glacier is
ringed by cliffs. Klenke's report on summitpost shows a route on the
right up the cliffs, but that looked sketchy. Matt thought he saw a
route on snow through the cliff band left of center, and we decided we
would try that the next day.
Sunday we awoke at 7am to find low clouds obscuring everything
above the top of the cliffs. We kept checking and eventually started
to see signs of clearing. We left camp at 9:45 and headed for our
target gully; sure enough, it was a good though steep route entirely on
snow to the top of the cliffs. We roped up here for the traverse of
the Douglas. From here to the top of the distant couloir (which is
hidden behind the left ridge of Thunder Pk. as viewed from camp) the
route was a straightforward traverse west, staying high under the
cliffs and buttresses above the glacier and then directly up the
couloir to its top. Very few crevasses were seen. Matt and I swung
leads along the glacier to the col, where we unroped and booted to the
top of a very small subsummit, scrambled up the next one to the west
and saw the summit was yet still farther over. The rock was the usual
mediocre Cascade choss with some large loose blocks; test your holds. Scrambled off
this subsummit into a dirt gully, went down ~50 feet, found a short
chimney then more scrambling up to the not-very-spacious true summit.
We were the first party of the year to sign in.
Rapped off the top bit then returned the way we came. In
retrospect probably would have downclimbed it. Returned to camp the
way we came without incident. Summit day was about 11.5 hours.
Pics here: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=7967618
Eric Johnson