Clements and Cannon: Glacier Classic, Day 1

Date: August 17, 2019
Leader: Forest Dean
Participant: Bryan Kercher and Fintan Maguire

The three of us started out from Logan Pass at 7:00am. We hiked up the climbers trail to the saddle between Oberlin and Clements in good time, then scrambled up to the base of the cliffs on the NE side of Clements. Here we geared up and made an airy traverse on a narrow ledge over to the prominent East Gully of Clements. The last 30 feet of ledge traverse was a bit too exposed for our comfort level, so we roped up and protected the move into gully. The gully itself is steep near the bottom with classic loose Glacier scrambling. Could be considered class 4 or easy 5 depending on how one looks at it. We belayed a couple pitches with the short rope we had brought along for just that reason. The top half was all solid third class scrambling, and by 10:30 we were at the summit. A very fun and worthwhile climb- all within constant view of the hordes of tourists hiking up the boardwalk to Hidden Lake Pass. Three other women and then one solo guy arrived at the summit via the easy West Ridge route as we took pics and had a snack. Since none of us knew the exact route down the West Ridge (turned out to be very obvious), we happily followed the young man (Parker Gilespie) all the way down to the Bird Woman Pass saddle. Since it wasn’t even noon yet, we figured we might as well climb Mt. Cannon as well. The route up the Southeast ridge is really straightforward and fun…basically just involved following the cairns! Class 3 all the way. One interesting cruxy move near the top. We were mostly engulfed by fast moving clouds when we arrived at the top and thus didn’t spend too much time there. (The weather had started out nice, but was rapidly deteriorating as the day progressed). The descent went well and soon we were back at the Pass. From there we followed a well used climbers trail back down to the Hidden Lake trail and then out to Logan Pass. As we arrived at the pass, the rain moved in and sky’s let loose- we had arrived just in time! About 9 miles of travel, 4400’ of elevation over 8 hours at a relaxed pace. A very fun day! Forest Dean