On August 4th, Peninsula Wilderness Club members Isaac Sun, Tom Henning and I embarked on a 3-night trip to climb Glacier Peak (10,540 ft) in the Glacier Peak Wilderness of the central Washington Cascades. Our plan was to climb Glacier Peak from the South, using White Pass and Glacier Gap to access the most remote Washington stratovulcano. Our successful trip was blessed with plenty of warm, clear weather with only a brief shower and storm clouds after reaching the summit.
Our chosen route began at the Sloan Creek Campground on National Forest road 49 (2072 ft.). This road had been closed for years due to washouts but was opened just two weeks prior to our trip, cutting 7 miles off the approach. Our route took us up the North Fork of Sauk River, past the Mackinaw Shelter then steeply up to picturesque White Pass for our first camp at 5900 ft. The second day we traversed the East ridge of White Mountain (7043 ft.) and crossed North over a saddle to the White Chuck Glacier, finally ascending up to Glacier Gap (7300 ft) for high camp. We began our summit day with a 3:40 AM start, successfully summiting at 8:04 AM under increasing clouds. After descending from the summit we packed up our Glacier Gap camp in light rain and began a long day of descending all the way down to the Mackinaw Shelter campsite at 2960 ft, arriving at our third and final campsite at 6 PM under sunny skies. On our fourth and final day we enjoyed and easy hike down the North Fork Sauk River to the trailhead.
