John Guilford's Hikes
Goat Flats on 1989-09-04
Date: 1989-09-04
Location: Goat Flats
People: (including myself): Lynn
We went up with the goal of reaching the top of Three Fingers (or at least
to see how difficult it would be). We took one wrong turn on the forest
service road on the way in (a short distance later, we stopped, check the
NFS map, and corrected ourselves); you stay low on the main road almost all
the way in (crossing two rivers); just at the end (within 1/2 mile) you
turn right and go up to Tupso Pass. The way in was relatively flat and we
made good time (initially, I accused Lynn of trying to leave me in the
dust), though the way was pretty muddy (being the third day of a 3-day
weekend - a lot of boots stomped it up before us). We had a momentary
confusion at Saddle Lake trying to
find the trail, before we went up to the edge of the lake and turned left.
There were a fair number of people there, and we kept a decent pace to
avoid being caught in a group. Unfortunately, today wasn't as good as
yesterday (weather wise) and the clouds started coming in when we got to
goat flats. After crossing over to the back side (over what I thought was
Tin Can Gap - but which turns out not to be), we saw some nice views (it
being our first time over there), but they didn't photograph very well. We
made a long traverse towards what is (in reality) Tin Can Gap. On the way,
we passed some Mountaineer's types whom we overheard saying things about
they wouldn't go to the top without ice axes. In addition, everyone we saw
up there had axes (besides ourselves who didn't). This didn't bode well
for our summit expedition. At the end of the traverse we switched back up
to a gap and crossed over the ridge line again. There we beheld glaciers.
At this point Lynn decided she'd had enough and was going to eat lunch (it
was pretty cool and cloudy at this point). Believing that I was near the
top, I wanted to push on. I decided to go along the gap between the top of
the glacier and the rocks. I went along here for a bit (it was hard going)
and wished I'd brought gloves. I decided that that wasn't going to work
and headed back. I looked at the top of the glacier, and even though it
was relatively steep, there was a well worn boot track across the top, and
there wasn't much exposure (you'd only slide maybe 100' before you hit
rocks and would stop). I followed the boot track across the glacier a
couple hundred feet and descended back to a dirt trail. This continued a
bit further until I came to the real Tin Can Gap. Here I was stymied.
Visibility was poor (a couple hundred yards), but I could see that the
glacier here went quite a ways down into crevasses. The glacier rose
higher than I did, and looked like it might have had a cornice over the
gap, although there may have been space to go between rocks and the glacier
and cross the gap that way. Worse, it looked like the beaten track crossed
the gap and then veered to the left across the glacier. This track faded
into the clouds. Thus, I had a problem. Even if I could cross the gap on
the rocks, the rocks went right, and the track went left. Did they come
together further on? I definitely didn't want to cross the track there
without an ice-axe, since there was quite a bit of exposure (although I'd
say the odds against slipping were really good, the consequences were
really bad). This, coupled with the fact that Lynn was waiting for me and
that I wouldn't have been able to see anything anyway, led me to turn
around. The trip back down was uneventful. We discovered that there is a
pit toilet up on goat flats (BYOTP). (Later note: on a subsequent trip I
found out how far it was from the gap to the summit. It was a good thing I
turned back when I did. If I had gone on (which I could have done without
an ice axe - as it turns out), I would have either had to turn back before
the summit anyway, or leave Lynn sitting in the cold for several hours).
Please send comments or corrections to
john_guilford@keysight.com
Last updated on: Mon Jun 8 16:50:16 PDT 2015
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