Klawatti Peak
- Jul 4
- 5 min read
7/3/2026 - 7/4/2026
A return to the Inspiration Icecap was in order – this time for Klawatti Peak. Rio and I stopped by the WIC in Marblemount hoping to get a permit for the Klawatti Zone. I wasn’t surprised that permits would be hard to come by in the area over the long weekend, but I was surprised that Klawatti was full and Eldorado had space. We gladly accepted a permit for the Eldorado bivy sites and were off on our way down the Cascade River Road.
There were several cars parked at the mile 20 pull off, but there were still plenty of spaces available. We shouldered our heavy packs, leaving at the non-alpine time of noon, and were immediately confronted with the first challenge of the Eldorado climber’s path – the river crossing. The best crossing changes from year to year, and it has looked different in each of my three trips to this area (see Austera Peak TR from 2020). After some scouting around, we located a suitable string of logs. The last crossing was a little skinny and it was beneficial to have a trekking pole for balance.
Once on the other side, we had to go a short distance back to the east to regain the main route. The main climber’s path is very well defined, and it was quite clear once we had found it. The climb got down to business quickly and was about the same as I remembered it.
At around 4000’ we broke out into the “infamous” boulder field. There is a trail now through most of this section if you keep your eyes peeled to the climber’s right of the boulders. We followed our instincts and timely cairns and made good progress, emerging into meadowy terrain before long. We refilled water at a nice stream crossing and carried on until we hit patchy snow at around 5600’.
Thankfully, the climb up and over into the next basin was snow-free, but it started up in earnest again on the other side of the ridge. I loaded up on water because I wasn’t sure if there would be any running at camp and ended up carrying around 5 or 6 liters up the 1400’ slog to camp. We marched up the sloppy snow in a dense cloud, and it actually got quite chilly as we roped up for the flat glacier crossing to camp. There were some definite cracks starting to open up in this section, so we felt good about our decision to rope up.
By the time we made the crossing to camp, the clouds had started to swirl in and out, but things were trending towards clearing. It was an awesome spot to pitch the tent. Rio and I found a nice, sheltered spot and only shared the area with one other group of two – pretty quiet for a holiday weekend. We cooked dinner, were paid a visit by a friendly mountain goat, and admired the view. Forbidden Peak was swirling in and out of the clouds, making for a dramatic scene. It got surprisingly cold standing around – it was funny to think of the rest of the United States in a sweltering heatwave, while we were up shivering on a glacier.
We both stayed plenty warm overnight but waited for the sun to come up in the morning before emerging from the tent. We were roped up and striding out onto the Inspriation Glacier by 7 am. There were some minor ups and downs on the traverse to Klawatti col, but it was overall remarkably flat. I tried to really appreciate the grandeur of the landscape, there was so much rugged beauty in our field of vision – from Forbidden, to the pointy spires and crags dotting the ridgeline ahead of us, to the big crevasses looming lower down on the glacier.
We strode into Klawatti col at about 8:15, right behind another group who was starting up Klawatti Peak. At this time of year, there is a bit of fifth class climbing required to reach the SW ridge. We had to wait around for a bit as the group of 3 ahead of us negotiated this section. It was actually a great excuse to slow down and relax in this absolutely gorgeous location.
When they were done pitching out the climb from snow to ridgeline, Rio and I got situated at the base of the climb. There was a pretty good moat forming that we were careful crossing, and this brought us to a nice flat rock where we stashed crampons and ice axe and switched to approach shoes. Rio volunteered to lead and protected the climbing with a few cams and 2 nuts. The climbing was quite fun, and there was only one slightly harder section that gave either of pause. The only thing I would do differently next time would be to bring radios – we got out of earshot of each other but were able to make it work. Rio belayed me up (thanks for leading and the belay!) and we were officially out of the class 5 terrain.
The rest of the scramble was a lot of fun – solid class 3 if you stayed on the ridgeline to start before it eased to class 2 near the summit. The summit had a variety of potential high points, so I tagged all of them, and it was cool to look back at Rio on one of the other sub-summits. The view of Eldorado and the massive glaciers clinging to its slopes stole the show and we took a nice break admiring the scene.
The scramble down was more solid than expected, and one rappel with a 60m rope off an existing anchor brought us all the way back to the snow and our gear. The traverse back across the Inspiration glacier seemed to take much longer on the return than on the way in, but we got back to camp in good time.
It would have been nice to stay another night, but alas, it was time to hike out, so we packed up and slogged back to the car. Everything went smoothly on the hike out, and we were back in Seattle before the big fireworks displays got going. I already can’t wait to go back up the Eldorado climber’s path for Dorado Needle!
Final Stats: 11.3 miles / 6235 feet of gain
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