Day 5- 5.25 miles w 1,400 elevation gain and then 1,800 elevation loss
We all ended up going to sleep by 9pm last night because of the storm. I love the sound of the rain on the tent, but after a while I still put in my ear plugs because I don’t want to be awoken by a sound in the middle of the night and wonder for hours what it was. We had planned on waking up at 7 to start our big climb, but everyone was up at 6:30, rearing to go! We had hot vanilla lattes and a few bites of Bri’s bars, but then got everything packed up w the plan to eat hot breakfast on top of the pass for lunch…a little flip flop of meals today so we could get going.
We left camp at 8:30, but didn’t actually start the climb up the pass until 9 since we started w a thigh high river crossing which the kids did in their camp/water shoes so they wouldn’t have to climb in wet feet the whole way. So they dried their feet and switched to their trail runners just to be greeted by another wet river crossing a few hundred feet later…who knew!? The climb up the pass was really fun w amazing views and something new to conquer around every bend.
Tons of snow, many false summits, boulder hopping, river jumping…the kids killed it, getting to the top by 11:30! We all put on our micro spikes and used the ice axes for the final push to the summit just to be on the safe side.
There was a pretty clear and deep path in the snow from previous hikers, but if anyone had slipped there, then it would have been a 500 foot plunge straight down to a pile of rocks below…not worth taking the risk for sure. There was one last rock scramble to reach the top where 4 guys greeted the kids with cheers and congratulations since they had recently reached the summit themselves. Needless to say, the views from 12,000 ft were pretty amazing looking both directions.
There were so many lakes to be seen, but all of them were still frozen. We made hot breakfast for lunch and enjoyed our accomplishment for a while. We still had 3.25 miles to get to Charlotte Lake, where we planned to camp, so we headed down the other side which was steeper but had less snow.
When I say “less” snow, I mean there was still quite a bit. And of course it was always strategically placed across the switch backs so that we would have to scramble/slide down in order to get to the next switch back. We made it to Charlotte by 3 and since the lake is a tad warmer (meaning there is no ice floating in it) we all washed up and are now relaxing and about to start dinner…chicken risotto, tasty! What a great day!
Maddie says: So this morning everything was soaked. Somehow my sleeping bag remained dry while mom’s was pretty damp which was a plus. Going up Glen Pass actually wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be. The way up in the snow was actually harder and steeper than the actual summit. We met a bunch of really nice and awesome people heading both north and south, and it really brightened my day. We had some sketchy downhills on the other side of the pass, but we made it through mostly unscathed with Max falling on the snow twice and countless close slipping calls. For some reason we were all feeling our legs a lot more on the way down, so we will definitely need the sleep and stretching tonight. It’s pretty windy at Charlotte Lake right by the water, but at our campsite 100 feet from the lake it is pretty toasty. There are some thunder heads rolling in again, so hopefully it isn’t as bad as last night:) Only downhill from here.
Amy and Brian's 