Tony and I headed out early on Sunday, June 2nd to try a gully on Flute Peak. The night before it was cold - all the standing water in the valley froze! This made for easy travel on Flute Glacier but the snow in the gully was rock hard - not enough purchase for our Katoolahs and small ice axes. We ended up climbing Ewe in hopes of letting the gully soften up ... it was not enough. Lastly, we climbed up to the saddle over looking the Organ Glacier and the standard route up Flute Peak. It looked like that would have been a fine route to travel ... however, we were out of time for the day (we had school on Monday). Next time...
6:30am - an absolutely perfect day for what we wanted to do:
Cloudless, windless, day:
A still frozen Symphony Lake:
Eagle Lake and Eagle Peak:
Looking back at Eagle Lake:
The first glimpse of Flute Peak:
Changing into neoprene socks:
First attempt:
The standard route up Eagle Peak:
Climbing Ewe with the idea that the gully might soften up some given a bit of time (the gully we wanted to climb is in the background):
The one tricky traverse on Ewe Peak:
Ewe Peak:
Although it looks like we were on an extended expedition, the trip from the parking lot to the summit took us about 7 hours - the conditions for travel were absolutely ideal.
We topped out on Ewe Peak and the register was gone. We saw something glinting in the sunlight below us. Tony was sure it was pure gold and headed down to check it out.
Photos from Ewe (while waiting for Tony to finish his prospecting):
Tony's "gold":
It was a lid to a jar ... probably the jar that contained the last register.
Our proposed route up Flute:
With a time stamp ... this is what is looked like as we headed back to climb it after ascending Ewe Peak:
Some clouds had gathered in places ... Alaska turning into Colorado...
Turning our backs on Flute Peak:
The standard route up Flute Peak from a saddle between the Flute and Organ Glaciers:
Organ Peak:
Polar Bear Peak:
Tony and some false advertising ... there wasn't a mango in the bag (Ewe Peak is in the background above the Flute Glacier):
