Grindstone 7.7.10

Well this one didn't go as planned but I made the best of it. I managed to get out of bed at 4am hoping to beat the expected high heat. It took me a bit longer than expected to reach the washout on the Icicle Creek Road due to many of my stops involving stores that were yet to open. Thankfully it was cool as I geared up. I made it about a .25 mile before realizing that I had left my trekking pole in the car. I felt it would be useful higher up so I turned around to get it. As I made it back to the car a truck with two dogs in it was just pulling in. In an effort to unlock the car I dropped the leash. The shepard decided to say high by jumping up on the side of the bed of the truck making some deep scratches. I wasted some time giving the unhappy driver my personal information so that I can fix it. Now after getting up early with not nearly enough sleep was a bit more than I could handle. Thankfully I was able to channel my immense displeasure for my dog into pounding out the mileage to the Chattter Creek Trailhead somewhat faster. I reached the trail and began my way up. The first portion meanders a little before crossing Chatter Creek and then the work begins. This steepness arrived with full sunlight and much warmer temperatures. As is the case the first warm hike of the year takes it's toll on me. I pushed on thankfully reaching the cool shady area of the recrossing of Chatter Creek. I was pleased that the water was lower than other trips making it much easier to get all three of us across. After the creek crossing there is some more climbing before the grade eases off when reaching the wonderful basin at around 5100'. This is where my fix job on the dogs pack came apart making it useless to me. Since I had no room to stow anything else in my pack and the idea of throwing it over my pack didn't appeal to me I wasn't certain what my next move would be. I found a nice sheltered spot to drop pack and weigh my options. I decided it would be best to stash most of my gear and go light with just what I needed to bivy. It amazed me after off loading a few pounds how much better my legs felt. In short order I was at the basin before the trail makes it's final push to the pass. Here the snow started and was mostly continuous to the summit. I had reports of staying on the ridge until 7400' but that didn't look appealing because of the massive cornice that overhung that route. I could see someone had kicked steps directly underneath it and skirted it's side. I am sure the condition might have been better when this was done but I don't think I would try that no matter what the circumstances were. I put on crampons and kicked steps the short steep portion to reach the ridge at 7000'. Here I had to try to find a way down the other side. I removed my crampons and was able to find some dirt and trees that gave my some security to reach the more mellow slopes below. Once again on snow I had to traverse some ways before I could make the last push to the summit. I was thankful that this portion was under the cover of snow because I am sure that this traverse is mostly loose rock and would be very tedious. With the worst past I now had to try to determine which of the many summits was the true summit. I remembered some pictures from a previous trip that looked like the way so I followed. I was able to see some footprints coming down of the ridge from the 7400' level and I made my way towards them hoping they might have an idea of the best route. When I intersected the track I surprised to find that it was laid my mountain goat. I followed until I broke out on the summit ridge where I traversed to the small saddle and then switchbacked to the summit. The views were tremedous as I sat among the hordes of ladybugs. I thumbed through the register which was placed in 1994 and saw many familiar names. I was shocked to see so many entries, I wouldn't have thought it would see so many visitors. I had the honor of being the first entry for this year, although I thought there were signs of skiers up on the higher slopes.


Some of the many pictures I took. It seems that none really came out well



I debated on what to do next. I saw a gap on the North tending ridge that leads to Cape Horn which was the next stop on my itinerary. There was small pass with easy slopes on the West and it appeared mellow on the East as well. I gave much thought of going through the gap and traversing to Lake Edna. In the end I decided that it would be best to head back to my stowed belongings. I chose a more direct descent of a nice snow filled gully. The beagle found something to investigate and lingered and I was able to shoot some interesting pictures of his descent.



Once back on my uptrack I followed in footprints until just before I reached the way I had come down. Here I angled a little further East and reached bare dirt that lead me easily to the ridge. I made quick work back to my makeshift camp. Once back I realized I still had plenty of time to make it out since I had only 2 hours to get back to the car. I debated while making dinner and sometime after until finally deciding to stay the night. I had a great night sleep and finally got out of the sack around 8:30 and made some coffee and hit the road. When I reached the car there were plenty of official vehicles so I inquired on what the issue was. I had a tough time to get anyone to acknowledge me. Finally one man told me that someone possibly needed help on Jack Ridge. I know that they were trying to formulate a plan but since it was apparent that I had been on more than a day hike I would have thought they might be at least interested on where I had come from. Granted I don't know all the particulars but if I had seen something it could have proved valuable to their efforts. All in all it was another satisfying trip.

Approx 14 miles 5500' of climb 27 hours car to car

Little Bulger 6.29.10

As is my pattern I don't always do things the way things are normally done. Little Bulger is one of the rarer visited summits of the Home Court 100. While I don't have any concrete information to prove this but I would be willing to bet it doesn't see many summits. The standard approach is via Dingford Creek and leave from between the two Myrtle Lakes. I wasn't thrilled about doing that route and last year I set out from Dorothy Lake to Bear/Deer Lakes. I ran out of enthusiasm without mustering an attempt. Today with ONELUV1 signing on for another outing I had more hope for success. We managed good time to the Dorothy Lake Trailhead and soon we were underway under mostly cloudy skies. The trail is great shape all the way to inlet crossing. The bridge is still out so we switched to sandals to manage the crossing. The trail to Bear/Deer Lakes is in great shape and we easily made it to the saddle above the lakes. Here we left trail and traversed above the East Shore of Bear Lake. I had used this route from return from my trip late last year. We finally made it to the meadow area on the SE side of the lake. Here we had a short lunch and plotted our next move. I thought I had remembered a nice gully that would take us to the upper slopes, but this gully was mostly melted out and had quite a bit of moving water. This didn't appeal to me so I led us across a creek that had some healthy flow. Once on the West side of the creek we headed mostly due South until we reached an East/West tending ridge at 4200'. This portion was rather brushy greatly slowing our progress. Once on the ridge we turned East and the brush abated. I was able to follow something similar to a trail. I am guessing long ago there was some mining up high. After a short boulder field we were stymied by some rock outcroppings so we traversed on some sketchy snow until we were a able to take a nice ramp that led to some open snow slopes. The snow was great for kicking steps and we made good time to reach the what I thought was the summit area. I was hugely dismayed to see an impressive pinnacle that looked nearly unclimbable that was certainly higher than where we stood. Further along the ridge I saw an area that looked to be 100' higher. We had to drop some elevation to make the snow slopes that led us thankfully to the true summit. Once on the summit I was quite surprised by how steeply the ridge dropped to the potholes below us. The vantage of the pinnacle was also striking showing that the slope was actually more than 90 degrees. While the views of Big Snow and the surrounding peaks was impressive it lost some of impact due to cloud cover. We had some discussion about our return but I felt the known was better than the appealing more direct line. The descent went very quickly. I erred on the last 200' and we ended up in the next bay to the West. We decided to head along the West shore for the SHORT ways to the trail on the North side of the lake. Well the way was very brushy and thankfully we made back on trail without too much bloodletting. Once on trail we made much better time. On the descent to Dorothy the beagle fell through some rotten snow and completely disappeared only to reappear 15' further downhill from underneath the snow. He didn't seem bothered in the least and we had a good laugh over the episode. We reached the inlet and reapplied sandals which we both kept on for the rest of the way to the car. While I am not sure I would recommend this route it went and it was a very rewarding day. I was thankful for another day with great company.




Approx 14 miles 4300' of climb 9 hours car to car

Sherpani 6.22.10

I had posted a thread for partners and had quite a few responses but slowly most went on to other plans. ONELUV1 met me at the Issaquah PR and we waited for the third who never showed. We stowed the gear and I broke him in to my annoying dogs and their penchant for barking at each and every car they see. Thankfully ONELUV1 didn't jump out of the car before we hit I-90. Soon we were heading on past Salmon La Sac Campground and the road was much better than last week's bumbfest on the North Fork Teanaway Road. We parked at the Paddy Go Easy Trail in front of the huge anthill that has been there for as many years as I can remember. The weather was glorious with unbroken sun with perfect temps. We were making good time, maybe slower than normal since ONELUV1 hadn't been in the area before I was pointing out many of the points of interest. We reached snow around 5400' and left the trail shortly thereafter. I had read a spot on report from Ragman and Rodman so route finding was very easy. The intial portion was unpleasant for me as I broke through a few too many times. I dropped a little lower finding much better snow conditions. Once we were below the saddle we quickly reached the ridgeline. I figured there would be much more and better quality snow on the East side of the ridge and I wasn't disappointed. There was a ton of snow and it was very consolidated. We traversed to a small shoulder and then dropped a bit to again climb to another saddle. Here we dropped pack. We took a direct line to Sherpani's East Ridge and kicked steps to the summit block. We had to tease out a few options before we settled on the South side traversing the East side and corkscrewing all the way to the South side. Once we reached the "coffin top" perched on the summit a small jump up and we were on top. There is a wonderful summit register with many familiar names. The regsiter pays homage to the Prater's and it is apparant that they had many admirers. One entry stood out to me, a 7 year old had made the climb. I found this most impressive. As is usual for me I found it difficult to hang out on the summit even though the summit flat and large enough for a larger party. I downclimbed back to the base of the summit block and had a quick bite. The return trip went much faster than I expected, once on the West side again I dropped lower to avoid the post hole hell of our ascent. I found great snow in the trees and would have saved considerable time had I not started descending too early. We traversed for quite a ways before we regained the trail. Thankfully reaching the trail again we put it on cruise control and soon we were back at the car.




Approx 9 miles 3500' of climb 6:45 car to car

Gene's Peak 6.15.10

With the less than stellar forecast I was hoping that the Teanaway effect would be in full force. I was lucky enough to have Blane one of my co-workers sign on. True to form as we crested Snoqualmie Pass the weather cleared and the sun broke through. I did have some concern because I saw a few large thunderheads further East. I was dismayed by the condition of the North Fork Teanaway Road, it was a pot holed mess. I have been on this road many times and I have never seen it anywhere close to this poor of condition. Thankfully we finally reached the Iron Peak Trail. I wanted to use this trail to avoid any creek crossings. I have some not so fond memories of crossing both Bean Creek and Beverly Creek and wanted to avoid any chance of a repeat. We decided to pass on taking the snowshoes but I did stow my crampons just in case. The trail was in good shape as we made our way up the easy grade. We reached snow around 5200' and it soon became consistent. The snow slowed our pace along with my taking 6 weeks off from climbing. Soon we were at the saddle between Iron-Gene saddle. There was some sign of recent passage so I followed. We quickly left snow for some loose rock scrambling. I decided on the way up that I would prefer to find a different line for our descent. I found it interesting while I was doing my best to avoid rock, Blane clearly was steering towards it. Finally I dropped a small ways to allow me to access the snow field that lead all the way to the summit. Thankfully on snow again the pace again quickened and we were both on the summit. The views were great for what we could see. It appeared that we were in the only sun filled spot for some distance. I watched cloud bursts pound all the nearby peaks for the time we were on the summit and yet none were able to burst throught the Teanaway effect and we managed to be in full sun the entire day. After lounging for some time we decided to make our way down. I led us further East and soon we were cliffed out. Unwilling to admit defeat I climbed back up a short ways until I found a snowy ramp that led to a very glissadable gulley. After reaching the bottom we wove our way through some gulleys and loose scree. Finally we reached the bottom only to realize that we had to climb 500' back to the saddle. Now we were in full sun and it was getting warm. I couldn't help but think Blane was thinking why didn't we just come down the way we had come. To his credit when I broached the subject he just replied, that we both probably could use some extra conditioning. Once at the saddle we stopped for a short snack before the short descent to the car. I was surprised to see some fresh prints going down and in short order we crossed paths with those who had made them. A nice older couple out for a nice hike. A truly beautiful day to be out among some great company. On a curious side note, there seems to be some conjecture about Sherpa's Peak balanced rock in relation to the height of the true summit. Gene's Peak has a great view of it. I am mostly positive that the balanced rock is higher. I am not sure if this picture does a good job of showing it but it does seem apparent from the field.

Approx 9 miles 3500' of climb 5:30 car to car