Eldorado Spring Survey
On the summit
April 27, 2025
Eric and Branden
5:15am – 4pm, 9 miles 7kft gain
Results: 25.3ft snow accumulation on summit
Eldorado is one of the five historical icecap peaks in the contiguous US and I’m surveying these peaks at approximate max snow depth time of year to understand seasonal variation in elevation. I surveyed East Fury and Colfax the previous week, so Eldorado was next on the list. Based on the nearest snotel sites, the approximate max snow depth occures between late April and early May. I’m trying to get them all surveyed in a ~3-week window in this timeframe.
The route
I discovered last September that Eldorado peak is no longer a true icecap peak. A rock summit is now higher than the icecap summit in late summer, meaning it is now a rock peak. I estimate the switch occured in roughly 2020. However, the shorter ice summit still exists, and I’d still like to track its annual and seasonal changes in elevation.
Branden and I left town Saturday evening, but a few hours later we realized not all of the ski poles had made it into the truck. We were in Darrington at the time and decided to stop in the local IGA grocery store to see if we could improvise something. There were TIKI torches on sale for $10 a piece, and those actually looked like they might work. They have one sharp end that can go in icy snow, and one wide end that could work in soft snow.
Skinning up
We bought a pair and continued to the trailhead at the Eldo gate. Interestingly, the Eldo gate was open (which is rarely the case this early season). I suspect the next gate a mile or so up the road was still locked, though, since the road to cascade pass is surely still snow covered. I had brought my chainsaw in case of blowdowns, but the road was all clear. I was a little disappointed, and cascade river road is definitely more interesting in the winter with common blowdowns.
Skinning up
There were handfull of other cars in the lot, and we got a good nights sleep. We were moving by 5:15am Sunday. We the same good log crossing I’d used in January, a short walk downstream from the parking lot. We made good time up the climbers trail, and soon reached the snow-free bottom of the boulder field. We scrambled up to about 4500ft by 6:45am and there abruptly reached continuous snow.
We stashed our hiking shoes and started skinning up with ski crampons. It was pretty icy, though, so we soon just switched to boots and crampons and made faster progress. Up above treeline the sun started softening the snow and we skinned up to the ridge to cross to Roush Creek. There we cramponed down the icy west face and continued up the standard route.
Summit panorama
Higher up we started skinning, following an excellent skin track in the icy snow. We crossed the flat Eldorado Glacier and passed a group of three bare-booting down. I suspect they were postholing a lot once the sun warmed things up. We were able to continue skinning up until the base of the final knife edge summit ridge, then carried our skis the last stretch to the summit by 11:30am.
Skiing down with TIKI torch poles
This time of year the rock summit was completely buried and not visible. I mounted the Trimble DA2 dGPS unit on the highest point of snow and started logging data. We hung out for a full hour of measurements admiring the view. We headed down at 1am, and carried our skis to the base of the knife edge before skiing down. Branden expertly wielded the TIKI torches as ski poles, using the torch end against the snow like snow baskets on a ski pole.
We cruised down to the Eldorado glacier, skinned across, then skied back down to the Roush-Eldorado ridge. We booted up, then skied off the other side. The east side of that ridge is a short avy slope, and we cut it quickly, sending down small slush sluffs on the way. The lower route was very slushy, but we cruised all the way back to the boots no problem. We then had a fun hike back out by 4pm.
After processing the data I found there is a 25.3ft snow accumulation on the top of Eldorado now compared to September. I hope to remeasure again in September to see how the ice summit elevation changes.
© 2025, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.
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