On Friday night Pat and I started our drive out of the bay reaching the Brewers Creek trailhead at about 1:30 am. We set up the tent and crashed, waking again at 4am to get ready for our climb.
Starting at about 7500 ft, we beat the trail in the dark and then started following the frozen moraines until we reached the glacier propers.
We then came to a point where Wintum Glacier heads climbers left and Hotlum to the right through a very nasty looking crevasse field. It wasn't pretty and my heart rate was very elevated as we roped in and crossed the narrow bridges between the massive openings.
After the crevasse field the glacier got steep and we upped our pace.
Crevasses still lined the glacier and the mountain looked mean.
Getting higher on the mountain the sky looked bluebird and it looked like our one-day push might just work.
Unfortunately as we started to reach the Hotlum Gully where we would have started our vertical ice climb, the clouds poured over from the other side of the mountain and we made the decision not to take the unecesary risk.
Before we went back down however, we stopped to take in the view.
By 3pm we were back at Brewers Creek and by that night we were already in the bay again. Excited for another shot at the Hotlum Gully.