Eldorado was on my list of peaks to bag, but I didn’t think I’d get to it this season. There are other nearby peaks I was hoping to bag while staying in high camp, but I guess I’ll have to come back later and do those! This was my second time rope leading on a glacier, first being the Disappointment Cleaver route on Mount Rainier.

I love steep, and boy did I get what I asked for. Getting from the lower elevation to the bottom of the boulder field I was already sweating buckets. The boulder field was easy to hop through on the way up, but not so much on the way down.

After crossing over to the Eldorado Basin, we needed to ascend some more before roping up to get on Eldorado Glacier followed by Inspiration Glacier. Getting through the glaciers went by pretty fast it seemed. Before we knew it, we were getting on the Knife Edge. The photos I saw of the feature weren’t exaggerated at all! It felt so surreal to be walking on the narrow ridge with only a couple feet of room across. This was not the place to lose one’s balance that’s for sure.

Surprisingly, there were rocks just past top of the Knife Edge. We stayed at the top for about a half hour before making our descent. It was mostly cloudy on the summit, so there weren’t really much view to be had. Occasionally the clouds decided to dissipate for a few seconds, not even enough time to get a decent photo of anything nearby.

It was a loooooong day! 14.5 hours car to car to be exact and we all made it to and back safely.