Klawatti Peak and Dorado Needle

Klawatti (8,485ft) and Dorado Needle (8,440ft)

Eric and Duncan

May 7/8, 2018

After teaching my Monday morning class Duncan and I headed out of town at 10:30am Monday morning headed north. The goal was to climb two mountains on the washington hundred highest list – Klawatti Peak and Dorado Needle. These peaks stick out of a big ice cap in the North Cascades, flanked by the Inspiration and McCallister Glaciers.

Klawatti Peak was supposed to be a steep snow climb, but Dorado Needle had up to a few pitches of rock climbing. I really wanted to ski, but ski boots are not great for rock climbing. Given that Duncan was

snowshoeing, though, we agreed he could lead the rock pitches in his mountaineering boots and I would follow in my ski boots, so it wouldn’t be a problem.

 

We picked up permits at the Marblemount ranger station and coincidentally saw Aaron, Ana, and Pat Lam also picking up permits for the same area. They were skiing Eldorado as an overnight, which is a bit closer to the road than our mountains.

We all drove to the trailhead and started hiking by 2:15pm. My pack was pretty heavy with skis and ski boots strapped on, and I hiked in sneakers below snowline. The trail up from the Eldorado parking lot is an unofficial climbers path that isn’t maintained, so it’s sort of tough navigating over, under, and around all the blowdowns with skis sticking out the top of the pack.

An hour or so later we reached an intermittent snow line at the bottom of the boulder field, and I ditched my running shoes here and switched to ski boots. It was treacherous tiptoeing through the boulders and snow in ski boots. Sometimes the snow is thin and undercut, and I plunged through and banged up my shin.

Eventually the snow became continuous, and I put my skis on and started skinning up, while Duncan put on his

snowshoes. We followed some melted-out skin tracks up to a ridge, plunge stepped down to the Roush Creek drainage, and then ascended up to the base of Eldorado Peak.

We reached the bivy sites around 8pm, and saw two other tents there. It was pretty windy, which wasn’t great for us since we just brought bivy sacks that provided little protection. A little higher around the corner we found some shelter, though, and crawled into our sleeping bags for the night.

The next morning we got up at 4am, buried our overnight gear in a snow hole, and started cramponing across the icy snow toward Klawatti Peak. We wanted to climb this one early in the day since the route is a very steep south-facing snow slope, that would be unwise to climb in the heat of the day.

Within an hour we ditched our gear at Klawatti Col and started ascending the south face. The snow was icy, and we wished we each had second tools. Duncan went first, and I followed more slowly, trying to kick in really good steps that I knew I would appreciate on the descent.

 

After crossing a few tricky bergshrund bridges we gained the top of the face, then cramponed up a gradual slope to the corniced summit. It was around 7am, and we rested there for an hour to give the south face snow time to soften up more.

The descent was much easier, with the good steps kicked in and the snow softer. Back at Klawatti Col we roped up to cross the Inspiration Glacier, then dropped down the McCallister Glacier to the base of Dorado Needle. I think most parties ascend Dorado Needle later in the year, because the route descriptions I’d read describes much more rock climbing than we encountered.

We left extra gear at a col beneath Dorado Needle, and ascended slushy snowslopes to the base of the east face. We noticed the snow was continuous all the way up to the northwest ridge, so we just kicked steps in and climbed steeply up to the ridge, being careful to stay out from under some big cornices.

The snow went all the way to the notorious au cheval section, but for us this didn’t look so exposed, because a huge cornice had formed on one side. We took out the rope here and Duncan led a short 30m or so rock and snow pitch to the summit. Duncan only needed to put in one purple cam, sling a chockstone, and clip a rap anchor, so we could have gotten by with a lot less gear. However, later in the season when there

is less snow it would be a good idea to bring more gear.

 

I followed the climb in my crampons and ski boots, which luckily did not pose a challenge. We reached the top around noon, and I looked over to see two people on top of Eldorado. It turns out this was Aaron and Pat, and they would soon ski down from near the summit.

I down-led the pitch back to the good rock horn along the ridge, and we then slung this horn and rappelled most of the way down the snow face. We then roped back up and descended the slushy slopes to our gear. Over the next few hours I skied out and Duncan snowshoed out, and we reached the car with just an hour to spare before a heavy rain set in for our drive back to Seattle.

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