pack99

What is an easy way to reduce North Cascade backcountry hiker populations? (Answer at end)We began the field season on August 2 at Columbia Glacier. There were no cars at the Blanca Lake Trailhead, unusual. At 4000 feet the trail passed into the snow zone. After having hiked this trail 15 consecutive years, following the proper route was not difficult, for those unfamiliar with the route it would be. We reached the top of the ascent at 4600 feet with 4-8 feet of snow remaining. Only in 1997 and 1991 had there even been significant snow at this point. The descent on snow-icepack would have been best completed with crampons except for all the downed trees that had to be scrambled over. After fording Troublesome Creek at the south end of still largely ice covered Blanca lake, we walked on the edge of the lake ice past the first bluff. We ascended the steep snow to the top of the second bluff and camped on several meters of snow covering a heather meadow. A long snow trek brought us to the glacier which for the first time since 1991 had no exposed blue ice. In fact the snowcover was a minimum of 2m thick on top of the blue ice at the terminus. The terminus will remain snowcovered until at least mid-September, this represents an additional 2.75-3.00 m more snowpack than usual.

Next up was Lower Curtis Glacier. Greg Maddrey (Seattle) and I parked at the road en at Heather Meadows. We tried to buy the special Heather Meadow parking pass and found all 3 places closed, fortunately we later read in the newspaper that this additional fee was revoked. We hiked to Austin Pass to find the trail to Lake Ann untrammeled, not one footstep, no trail register or trail marker. With 6-10 feet of snow on the trail we opted for a quick glissade down the steep slope to the meadow below. The two miles to Straight Creek featured complete snowcover and no evidence of previous travelers. The sidehilling through the woods before the creek was difficult and offset the time gains of glissading. We camped on snow near the completely snowcovered Straight Creek. The steep terminus of the Lower Curtis Glacier was snow free and we measured 6 meters of retreat since last summer, and 23 m of retreat since 1996. Snowpack was 2-2.5 meters more than normal. No sign of camping at the deeply snowbound lake Ann.

The next morning after our second thunderstorm in two nights we surveyed the Easton Glacier. The trailhead bridge was washed out so like the other hikers we used the snowmobile bridge at Schreiber's Meadow. Once across the bridge there was no trail through the brush back to the main trail. Hikers wandered everywhere through this spongy, brushy alpine meadow to reach the trail. The Forest Service insuring maximum impact on the lower meadow by not delineating a simple route.

The bridges were not in to cross the stream draining Easton Glacier on either the Park Butte trail or the Scott Paul trail. The snowline was at 4000 feet and the entire Easton Glacier was snowcovered. The terminus had retreated an astonishing 28 m since our August 1998 visit, all during the previous late summer and early fall. We measured snow depth and emplaced ablation stakes up to 7000 feet on the glacier. We returned to the Easton Glacier 10 days later to identify the melting (ablation) from Aug. 6-18 to be 110 cm of snowpack at 4500 feet, 80 cm at 5500 feet and 80 cm at 6500 feet. We spent three days on the glacier remapping the surface of the glacier using differential GPS, checking the velocity at the 6000-6500 foot level and ascending to 9000 feet measuring snowpack depths in more than 100 open crevasses.

What about the world record snowfall on Mt. Baker? Measurements of snowpack thickness in crevasses on Easton Glacier this summer indicate that 31 feet of snowpack remains at 7000 ft and 35 feet at 8000 feet. This is in contrast to 1998 when snowpack was 5 feet deep at 7000 feet and 11 feet deep at 8000 feet. From 1990-1999 the deepest previous snowpack in late August was observed in 1991 at 8000 feet, 24 feet of snow. Now at the end of September and the 1999 annual melt season (May-September) the snowpack at 8000 is still 24.5 feet at 8000 feet. How much snowfall does this remaining summer snow represent? The snowpack in late August had a density of 0.60 g/cm3 , this is at least three times the normal new fallen snow density. Thus, at a minimum at 8000 feet the 35 feet of snow remaining represented 105 feet of snow compressed by time, melting and refreezing. In addition wooden stakes emplaced in the glacier in early June at 6500 feet indicate that from early June to late August 13 feet of dense snowpack melted. This is an additional 35-40 feet of snowfall that had melted prior to our late August measurement. At Mt. Baker Ski Area at 4500 feet the new world record snowfall was 1130 inches or 94 feet. At 8000 feet on Mt. Baker snowfall was no less than 140 feet or 1680 inches during the winter of 1998/99. Easton Glacier which flows down the south side of the mountain from 9400 feet to 5100 feet, has been the site of annual terminus, snowpack and ice melt studies by the North Cascade Glacier Climate Project since 1990.

On the north side of the mountain Rainbow Glacier has been similarly investigated since 1984. From 1984-1999 Rainbow Glacier has retreated 207 m, and Easton Glacier from 1990-1999 has retreated 195 m. Against this backdrop of glacier retreat on Mt. Baker came the world record snowfall of the 1998/99 winter season. We also visited the Squak Glacier, which Greg maintains was the most trying experience. The Scott Paul trail disappeared under continuous and deep snowpack within a half mile. The woods at this point being thick upon the steep slopes, we decided for the short route.

We headed up a gully going in the correct direction.  This led steeply 1500 feet up 
to the saddle.  The icy suncupped forest snows required crampons, a first for me to 
crampon through the woods.  We met up with the trail just where it emerges from the woods. 
We had found a bushwhacking free route, albeit a steep one.  The Squak Glacier terminus 
has stopped moving.  Retreat from 1996-1999 has been  59 m.  
    We hoped to hike in via the White River to the Honeycomb Glacier area .  The streams were 
reported to be too hazardous on the west side approach.  THE BUGS WERE TOO HAZARDOUS FOR 
AN EAST SIDE APPROACH.  We both agreed these were the worst mosquitoes of all time, they 
ignored our attempts to outrace them and our shield of bug dope.  I for one seldom resort
to using bug repellent, being bug tolerant,  and I can never recall them simply ignoring 
Deep Woods Off.  We actually pitched our tent twice for bug breaks.  A later conversation
with Bill Prater, Cle Elum uncovered this to have been the case in the 1950's as swell. 
The previously  substantial White River trail itself was not maintained beyond four miles,
and dies out before Lightning Creek.  We turned back for the first time in fourteen 
years retreat was in order.

We turned our attention to the more attention hike to Spider Meadow and the Lyman Glacier. Snowpack in this region was comparable to 1997 instead of far in excess. We mapped the Lyman Glacier in detail finding that this glaciers long retreat is slowing (Table 2). The glacier terminates in a cliff calving small icebergs into a lake. The cliff extensds 16 m above the lake surface and 13 m below the lake surface. The retreat has largely been through calving which did not occur this summer, as the lake was still ice covered in September. This glacier continues to slow down moving at only 6 feet per year since 1997, versus 28 feet from 1930-1988.

In traveling up the Chiwawa, Iccile Creek and White River Valley in the same week, including a stay at two of the campgrounds, it is apparent that Wentachee National Forest deserves recognition for both the quantity (23 by my count) and quality of campgrounds it maintains. This is in sharp contrast to Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie, where the quality is often poor and any weekend the number is far from adequate. There are six times the number of campsites on the Chiwawa River versus the Cascade River. Colchuck Glacier was our next destination. The snowpack around Mt. Stuart was only slightly above normal. Little snow was in evidence until 6700 feet, just below the moraine for the Colchuck Glacier. Colchuck Glacier has retreated 330 m since its Little Ice Age maximum but only m since 1990. It remains thick, crevassed and active in the cirque below Colchuck Peak. In the couloir between Dragontail and Colchuck a detached portion of the glacier is stagnant and melting away.

Mt. Daniels promised reasonable weather according to all forecasts. But after three foggy drizzly days we left the mountain worked completed but without a single glimpse of its summits. Ice Worm and Daniels Glacier were so deeply buried in snow measurements were difficult. Bill Prater met us there he had emplaced several ablation stakes on July 19. These revealed 1.7 meters of melting by 8/15. The Lynch Glacier was reached in a drizzly gale. Snow depths were 2 meters above normal. We descended to the terminus and crossed Pea Soup Lake on the ice, a first for me. Last year on 8/15, fall was beginning with the changing of the huckleberry leaves. This year on 8/15 spring was just arriving in the Peggy's Pond area. The trailhead of the Cathedral Rock trail lost its bridge to winter snow, but a temporary footbridge was promptly emplaced, again a fast response by Wenatchee NF, versus the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie NF effort at Schrieber's Meadow and elsewhere. The trend was clear in the end the highest snowapck versus average conditions were in the northwest part of the North Cascades (3.5 m above normal), the lowest in the southeast (1.25 m above normal). Interestingly snowpack depths on June 1 were not vastly different from 1991 or 1997 at Lyman Lake, Rainy Pass or Thunder Basin, but cool conditions in June and July prevented rapid melting, and consequently the exceptional snow remaining. One year of exceptional snowpack will not offset the longer term retreat of the glaciers, but the pattern of wetter winters beginning in 1995 bodes better, and if it continues for several years retreat rates will promptly diminish. Elev. 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 5500 Feet 0 0 0 0 1.5 6000 Feet 0 0.2 1.2 0 4.0 6500 Feet 2.5 3.0 3.75 1.5 5.5 7000 Feet 3.5 4.0 5.25 1.75 8.0 7500 Feet 4.0 5.0 6.0 3.0 9.25 8000 Feet 4.5 5.5 6.75 3.25 10.5 Table 1 Snow depth remaining from the previous winter's snowfall on Easton Glacier at specific elevations in mid-August. Year Total Retreat Retreat Rate

m m/year 1907-1930 230 10 1930-1944 255 17 1944-1970 312 12 1970-1986 156 10 1986-1993 56 8 1993-1999 34 6 Table 2. Retreat of the Lyman Glacier during this century.