Linsey, Duncan and Myself headed out to try the intermediate route on McClellan's Butte. With the low snow year we drove up the forest road from exit 38 to bypass a portion of the trail. Our timing was good, we hit the trail at 8 and within an hour reached the 3600' turn off point. There wasn't really any snow on the trail until 3500' or so. Also since there was so little snow we went an extra switch back up to skip some bush whacking, which meant we had a short 10' down climb into the gully. The bottom of the gully was all avy debris but above that it was hard ice with a few inches of snow on top. The spike of our ice axes didn't penetrate past a few inches so our self belays weren't very stable. About 5-600' feet up the gully it got continually steeper and I had decided that we needed both tools and the rope out. At this point Duncan was coming up a short steep section to reach me and slipped. He arrested within about 20' and was slow to get up. Linsey and I down climbed to him. His slide path revealed that the ice under the snow was almost water ice. During the fall he caught a crampon and tweaked an already weak ankle. We setup 4 double rope raps down the gully on pickets. ( Linsey down climbed and cleaned. ) and Duncan was able to tenderly walk down the trail.
Few notes. Watch out for some moats. Also with the conditions definitely bring two tools and prepare to rope up for the "technical" conditions. We only made it to 4200' but in general it was more challenging conditions than I would expect are normal but certainly seemed doable. Then again as it gets steeper the snow over ice may have have caused problems.
Hopefully Linsey will post some better Pictures.
