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Day 5 – Wednesday, July 7th
SNOW!!!! In July?! Unbelievable! We woke up at 5:30am to the sound of wet snow sliding off the tent fly. We felt dread in the pits of our stomachs. Another day was spent in the tent, this time mostly sleeping and trying to think positive thoughts. But sleet was blowing sideways into the tent almost all day, making positive thoughts hard to come by. We even began to miss the mosquitoes. Hopefully we would be able to move camp tomorrow…

Day 6 – Thursday, July 8th
We woke up at 7am to low dense clouds. Not another day stuck at Yang Yang Lakes?! I couldn’t be asked to re-read my book or spend another day just laying around! There was almost no wind and the clouds seemed reluctant to go anywhere. But after breakfast and a game of backgammon, we looked out our Half Dome window to see clearing skies. Time to go! We quickly packed our backpacks and headed out to take advantage of the clear skis while we had a chance. We took a steep snow gully that lead up to the saddle below Le Conte. Route finding was obvious and we quickly found ourselves on the Le Conte Glacier. Navigating the glacier proved to be straight-forward. Nate found a snow bridge and led us between two fairly large crevasses. He even got to use the third tool he carried to pound in a picket in the steep slope on the other side so that we would not both go careening into the crevasse abyss below. As we ascended to the Le Conte – Sentinel Col we found ourselves in a white out. At some point I remember hearing Nate say, “We’re here!” This was a nice surprise since we really could not see a damn thing and didn’t realize we were so close! Topping out on the col in a white-out really is not fun as one of the main reasons we did this trip was for the views. This was the second time now that we were robbed of our views due to clouds. Despite the white out, we continued along using the altimeter and the shadows of the rock cliffs on our left to be our guide as we traversed around Sentinel. Eventually, the skies cleared and we were awarded gorgeous views of the vast South Cascade Glacier and the valley below….breathtaking!! We roped up again to cross the South Cascade Glacier, moving in Echelon formation as we were paralleling the crevasses. We reached Lizard Pass and there it was….White Rock Lakes, Dome Peak, Sinister, Gunsight, the Chickaman Glacier….WOW, the big views we had been waiting for! What a site! We descended Lizard Pass to White Rock Lakes and set up camp.

Day 7 – Friday, July 9th
We awoke Friday morning in high spirits because there was not a cloud in the sky and we knew our friends Marcus, Anastasia and Becky were going to meet us that night on Itswoot Ridge. We had planned to climb Dome Peak together. We had a leisurely morning of buttermilk pancakes and coffee. As we were packing up, the wind picked up and we noticed some dark, threatening clouds looming on the eastern horizon. Clouds don’t move northwest in the Cascades, do they?! Hmm… Our Pavlovian response to the sight of clouds was instant panic.

We found the trail out of White Rock Lakes and it was actually quite a different path than we had expected based on the map. It was easy to follow and we quickly made our way to the Dana Glacier. As we had experienced already twice, at Cache Col and the La Conte-Sentinel Col, when we reached the Spire Col on the Dana Glacier, we were in a white-out. This was by far the worst white out we had experienced yet, we could only see 50 ft or so. This was a very stressful time for both Nate and myself. We decided to take our chances and descend from the Col and try to make our way to Itswoot Ridge. The description in the Beckey Guide says ”from the Col, traverse west to the third gully.” Neither of us could quite figure out what “third gully” Beckey was talking about. We started down the snow and were suddenly cliffed out. Nate spent some time studying the map all the while the clouds began to lift a little – just enough to give us a peek at where we were trying to go. Eventually we figured out what third gully we were supposed to descend and headed down. What a relief. The thick, dark clouds hung low and Itswoot Ridge looked gloomy. We decided that we would descend to Cub Lake to camp, that way Marcus, Anastasia and Becky would not have to travel quite so far.

As the afternoon and evening went on, the clouds slowly made there way down to us at camp until we were eventually surrounded by yet another white out. We had turned on the radio in the hopes that our friends would be joining us soon. Dinner came and went and there was still no sign of our friends. Had they decided not to come in? Was the weather going to be bad tomorrow? Were they still hiking up Downey-Bachelor Creek? We settled for the conclusion that forecast must be really bad for tomorrow so they would not be joining us. In any case, after feeling really sad that our friends weren't there, we turned off the radio and went to bed.

Day 8 – Saturday, July 10th
We woke up Saturday morning to still more thick, low clouds. We decided our best option would be to not climb Dome Peak but to head out and either sleep at the trailhead or sleep at one of the campsites along Downey Creek. As we started packing, the rain came. A sprinkle at first, but eventually it turned steady and consistent. We hiked on trail up to Cub Pass and down through meadow towards Bachelor Creek. I was a bit concerned about the avalanche debris field that I had read about but figured we would deal w/that obstacle when we came to it. I mean, come on, the avalanche was a few years ago, there must be some sort of climbers path through the debris like there is on the Boston Basin approach, right?

We hiked along in the rain and eventually came upon the debris field. Holy crap…it was a huge mess. Okay, into it we went…slowly but surely started to make our way through. Suddenly we came across a big ol’ pile of bear poop. I immediately start my NOLS course bear yell “HEEEEYYY BEAR”, over and over again so they bears would be aware of our presence and not eat us. All of the sudden we hear our echo. Wait…is that our echo? Maybe it’s people? Nope, must be our echo…Suddenly we hear “KIIRRSTTEEN!!!” Oh my god, could it be Marcus, Anastasia and Becky? It is!!! We spot Marcus who had dashed up the debris field. We fight our way down through the jumbled mess of fallen timber and brush and all of us enjoy a slighty tearful reunion. The first humans we have seen in a week! Turns out they had had a rough day of bushwacking and route-finding on Friday and *only* made it in 11 miles.

We all decided that we did not want to head back up to climb dome mainly b/c it was pouring rain, we were soaked to the bone, and we were all exhausted. Back we went down the “trail.” Marcus deployed a useful matrix-kung fu tactic of clearing brush w/his ski poles. He was surrounded by a halo of brush and leaves. It was much easier going on the trail since the bushwack crew had already scouted it out for us. We had a first easy crossing of Bachelor creek and proceeded down the trail for the second crossing. The log used to cross the river was rather slick due to the heavy rains. Becky, Anastasia and myself decided to cheval across it while Marcus and Nate figured their feet and boots were already soaked and forded the river. The trip down was pleasant at the start but as the miles wore on and feet were sloshing in our boots, the conversation lulled. Eventually Becky pointed out her 30-minute marker and Marcus passed his 20-minute marker…we were home free! The rickety ladder placed on the Downey Creek bridge proved to be no problem and we were all quickly back at Rufus (Marcus and Anastasia’s Astro Van) changing into our cotton, drinking TRBs (triumphant return beers) and eating TRCs (triumphant return chips)! Best of all, we still had plenty of time to hit La Hacienda in Arlington as it was only 7pm.

We piled into Rufus and headed down the Suiattle River Road. Suddenly we notice it is getting rather noisy in the car, which we all thought was due to the fact that we were driving on a rutted our forest service road. As the noise gets louder, Marcus quickly stops the car and runs to look at the tires. Low and behold, we had completely shredded the back tire and were actually driving on the rim! Luckily, Rufus has a spare and it was nice and full of air. Marcus changed up the tire in record time because we’ll be damned if we weren’t going to make it to the Mexican restaurant! Everyone knows the best part of coming out from several days in the backcountry is the opportunity to eat hot, greasy, subpar food and have it taste great! But to conclude, the Traverse was a bit more of an “experience” than we were looking for – hoping instead for more of the lounging in our underwear type of days than we got, but it was still beautiful and we look forward to doing it again. In say, 5 years or so.