Eldorado Peak Spring Survey

Eldorado Peak Spring Survey

April 23, 2026

Eric Gilbertson

Eldorado Peak used to be one of the five icecapped peaks of the contiguous US, but I discovered it lost its status as an icecapped peak around 2020. Now by late summer every year the highest point is rock. However, there still exists a remnant ice summit near the rock summit. I’ve been tracking the elevation of this remnant ice summit since 2024, measuring its elevation with professional surveying equipment in late summer at minimum height and mid spring at maximum height each year.

The minimum height time of year is generally Sept 1 plus or minus a few weeks, and the maximum height of year is generally late April plus or minus a few weeks. I’m approximating this based on data from the nearest SNOTEL site to Eldorado, Thunder Basin. Between Sept 2024 and late April 2025 the ice summit of Eldorado accumulated 25.3ft of snow. By Sept 2025, the ice summit melted back down to its 2024 height, but then additionally lost 7.4ft more of elevation. It had almost transitioned to a stage 3 icecapped peak, where the ice summit is no longer a local maximum in late summer. But the ice summit was still present.

My goal for this trip was to take an updated elevation measurement in late April 2026 to see how much snow accumulated since late summer. I was pretty familiar with conditions, since I had attempted to climb Eldorado and nearby Dorado Needle the previous month, in mid March. For that trip I spent a full day logging out the approach road, Cascade River Road, then snowmobiled in with Ryan. We’d made it to the Roush Creek crossing, but bailed after encountering unstable snow.

By this time of year in late April the snowpack is much more stable, so I decided to go solo. I drove up in the evening April 22, and luckily Cascade River Road was still passable. It appeared no new logs had fallen since I’d last cleared it, though I had my two chainsaws ready in the truck just in case. I made it to the Eldorado Trailhead, where the road was gated, and slept in the truck next to three other vehicles.

It rained most of the night, and I delayed my start until the last drops ended. I headed up at 5:30am, and found good logs to cross the North Fork Cascade River. Drizzle continued as I followed the climbers trail, and I got kind of wet. The boulderfield was completely melted out at the bottom, a lot different than in March where I could put skis on at the base. I carefully scrambled up the wet rocks, then by 5000ft the rain changed to snow and I saw continuous snow start on the ground.

I stashed my trail runners at snowline and skinned up from there. There was a set of posthole tracks going up, but otherwise the fresh snow had covered older tracks. I made good time up to treeline, then followed the posthole tracks to two guys packing up their tent just before the Roush crossing. It looked like they were going to head down, since they didn’t have skis or snowshoes.

I continued over to Roush Creek, then skinned up the mellow slopes. By then I was stuck in a whiteout, and it started snowing. The forecast had called for clearing by sunrise, but as usual the North Cascades is a bit wetter than expected. I soon reached the swale below Torado Needle, and had to stop to fix my skins. I had started out in rain and slush and then the snow changed to powder, which glopped up very bad. Unfortunately I had forgotten my skin wax, which would have solved that issue.

The glue no longer stuck, so I ski strapped the skins onto the skis and continued that way. I used my watch GPS to navigate across the flat Eldorado Glacier in the whiteout, and then I started getting breaks in visibility by the east ridge at the Eldo campsite. The snow got a little deeper there, and I looked forward to skiing down 6″ of fresh powder. I zig zagged up the east ridge, until 100ft below the summit. There it got a little too steep with the fresh poweder on top of an old icy layer. So I switched to crampons.

From there in the spring I usually go up climbers right of the summit and follow a knife edge snow ridge to the top. But this time the ice summit formed differently, and climbers left was very mellow. So I hiked up left, then kicked steps up a short steep section directly to the summit. The ridge was not a knife edge, and was instead kind of flat on top. This is drastically different than in 2015 when I first climbed Eldorado. I think I might have even used a rope on the summit that year. There’s not really any exposure anymore now.

I topped out at 11:30am and quickly mounted the Trimble DA2 on a small tripod on the summit, and started logging data. By then the skies were clearing a bit and I got brief glimpses of Dorado Needle, Klawatti, and Forbidden. It was pretty cold and windy with wind from the northwest, so I dropped back down the east side to find some shelter.

After an hour I logged the data and packed up by 12:30pm. I was able to ski directly from the summit, the first time I’ve felt comfortable doing that after seven times climbing Eldorado. I made fun turns in the powder down the east ridge, with great views of Moraine Lake and Forbidden Peak in the distance below. I then scooted across the Eldorado Glacier and back down the Roush Creek drainage. By 6.5kft the powder turned to slush and cascade concrete. I carefully side stepped back up to the Eldordo Creek side of the ridge, then quickly skied across the small steep slope back to the Eldorado Creek drainage.

From there I skied slush back down to 5kft by 1:45pm. I switched to trail runners then, and hiked back down the boulders, which were now dry in the sun. One group of 3 skiers was ascending, but otherwise I didn’t see anyone else. By 3pm I was back to the trailhead, and many more cars had showed up. Some skiers had ropes, and I think now is a popular time to do a Forbidden Tour, which has a short rappel section. I was soon driving home.

After processing the data I found the ice summit of Eldorado accumulated 30.5ft of snow since Sept 2025. It’s currently at an elevation of 8892.8ft +/-0.2ft (NAVD88). This is 6.3 ft more accumulation than between Sept 2024 – April 2025. This extra accumulation is a simular amount to the extra melting down of 7.4ft that occured between April 2025 – Sept 2025. The ice summit was 8895.0 ft in April 2025 and 8892.8 ft in April 2026.

One possible explanation for what is happening is that the wind patterns in that area cause snow to reaccumulate to a steady state height over each winter/spring on the remnant ice summit, no matter what the starting height was at late summer. Historically, the ice summit then melted down about the same amount each summer, so the ice summit was always about the same height in late summer year to year. But since the early 2000s the summer temperatures have been much warmer and the ice summit has melted down more and more each summer. It’s easier for seasonal accumulation to melt down since it’s less dense than long-term glacier ice. So each summer the seasonal accumulation melts, and additionally the glacier ice on the summit melts down too now.

There’s a good chance by Sept 2026 the ice summit will melt down enough to no longer be present anymore.

 

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