Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:25 pm Subject: Crater Mountain (8128')
Great job! Wow! Your times going up and down put us to shame! Great trip and nice nice pics. I like the idea of wading through Canyon Creek at the end - just wish I had had the presence of mind left to think of that!!!
Mon Aug 23, 2010 1:04 pm Subject: Beautiful Glacier Peak in 3 days from North Fork Sauk River
This is great - Bravo! on a fine climb. We're glad we could provide some beta and inspiration (though neither boy is yet a teenager - they are 9 and 12 years old). I'm glad to hear the crevasse provided only a good story and nothing more!
Sun Aug 15, 2010 12:25 pm Subject: Crater Mountain (North Cascades) 8-12-10
seawallrunner wrote:
what a beautiful trip report - what a great trip with your kids too. Congrats to everyone!
I would love to go to the Jerry lakes area - that place has been calling my name for a long time.
Thanks swr! I'd love to know a good way to get to those lakes. From looking at the maps it looked best to us to consider going over the top of the east lookout site of Crater and then down the back side of Crater and along below the glacier toward the lakes. Have you heard of anyone going there?
Fri Aug 13, 2010 2:59 pm Subject: Crater Mountain (North Cascades) 8-12-10
To follow up some shorter climbs we’ve been doing in the Rainy Pass / Methow Valley area (Sherman Pk, Whistler Mtn), we decided to spend a FULL day on a climb that we had heard was a long hike with a spectacular view on the summit – Crater Mountain. Crater has had two lookouts on it (both gone now) – one on the main summit (8,128 ft) and one on the east summit (7,054 ft).
Our climbing team (3 adults, 2 kids and one mountain dog) met at the Canyon Creek trailhead on Highway 20 (between mileposts 141 and 142) at the brisk morning hour of 6 AM. We knew this would be a long day and that early rendezvous turned out to be perfect in the end. Upon packing up and setting our altimeters for 1900 feet I was accused of selecting the lowest possible trailhead for a peak on the North Cascades Hwy (not true, but after climbing peak from around Rainy Pass at 4800 it felt like it). The weather had been clear on our drive from the Methow over Rainy Pass, but once we descended down into the Granite Creek valley, we dropped below some west-side low morning clouds. We thought that would be welcome for the steep morning climb up to Crater Lake, but they also served to humidify the area.
We started a little before 7:00. The trail starts out by going up along Granite Creek for a hundred yards to a huge new bridge, then back downstream for the same distance on the east side to a one-log bridge crossing Canyon Creek at the site of the broken down guard station. Once across the bridge, the trail splits (beware – there are no signs): the left fork goes down along Ruby Creek to the west while the right fork is trail 738 up to Jackita Ridge and Crater Lake. We turned right and signed in at the trail register that we came upon in just a few minutes. After just 5 minutes of leg-stretching low gradients, the trail starts to climb seriously. It goes up 3400 feet in 3.9 miles to the trail junction where you head off to Crater Lake – essentially the equivalent of Mount Si as a morning warm-up. The trail itself is an extremely well graded and pleasant tread, but the combination of steepness and humidity was taxing. We could only hope that our trail of sweat would not erode the trail too much.
At about 2 miles we reached the Wilderness Boundary. There were at least 3-4 good places for water along the first 4 miles of the climb. At about 3.5 miles is a very nice mossy overlook that makes a nice rest stop (~5000 ft). Just above 5200 feet we came to a stream crossing with a trail junction – once again unmarked (no signs). The trail to the right (across the stream) is the continuation of trail 738 to McMillan Park and Jackita Ridge. We took the left trail (#746) to Crater Lake (5800 ft). This trail is brushy with many logs down across the tread, making for what felt to be a strenuous 1.3 miles (500-feet elevation gain). There is a nice campsite along the outlet stream just 3 minutes before the lake. Just as you approach the lake there is a carin marking a trail junction where the trail to the east summit of Crater takes off. But we wanted to go to the main summit so we continued on to the lake. It took us a little under 4 hours to reach the lake from the car (5.1 miles; 3900 ft elevation gain). The lake itself is very shallow and small (we dubbed it Crater Puddle), but it provided a nice resting spot – for a full hour – as we lounged and wrung the buckets of sweat out of our clothes.
The summit still loomed 2.5 miles and 2300 ft above so at noon we started up again. The trail heads west, switchbacking up onto a rib SW of the lake and eventually climbing up onto the south ridge of Crater Mtn itself.
The south ridge is a classic alpine / subalpine mosaic with heather meadows dotted by clumps of alpine larch, subalpine fir, and Englemann spruce. It is a true delight to walk, with 270 degree views of the North Cascades. As we rose higher we thankfully began to catch a breeze that helped relieve the heat (the lake is the last water on this climb and there were only a few snow patches). As we approached the upper rock pyramid of Crater Mtn at about 7200 ft the trail began to become more engineered, with large rock walls.
At about 7500 ft the trail stops switchbacking up the south ridge and turns to the left, crossing the SW face on exposed tread / gravel-covered ledges. After about 100 yards, a prominent white rock dike is crossed. Continuing across the face is an obvious ledge system with rock carins. We followed this, but later on (on the descent) we noticed that there were markers (yellow painted circles with crosses on the rock – now becoming pretty faded in many places) leading straight up at that dike area rather than traversing. It looks easy and solid to go up there, but the route we took (marked with carins) worked fine as well. Both routes converge in about 100 - 150 ft elevation.
We continued from the dike on a traverse around the corner for another 30-40 yards where a dirty class 2 gully led upward to the top of a small rib. This area had considerable exposure. From the top of that rib we reached a section we dubbed the “ramp” – nice class 3 climbing up an angled rib just right of a loose corner that took us up to rejoin the original summit route. From that point it is another 200 feet (elevation) of class 3 scrambling, zig-zagging up ledges following paint marks and carins (follow carefully – some of the tempting ledges lead one into more difficult climbing). We climbed with the kids and dog each roped to one adult with a short rope, with helmets for the kids (in retrospect, it would have been good for everyone to have a helmet). The climbing was never sustained enough in difficulty to feel the need for a belay, but the exposure and crumbliness of the rock made a rope necessary for us.
At about 7900 feet we reached the top of the scramble and came onto a plateau where the trail once more appeared in the scree and heather fields to the true summit (7.5 miles and 6300 ft elevation gain from the car).
Little remained of the lookout. The view was spectacular in all directions and some of the alpine plants were in full bloom on top. We looked down the NW side toward Jack Mountain and saw the Jerry Lakes – a spectacular set of alpine lakes set in a series of criques. Has anyone been there? The breeze had picked up and occasional clouds swirled about the top while we enjoyed almost an hour on top.
Finally, at 3:30, we knew that we had to start down – with a long steep way to go before we would get back to the car. We down climbed the class 3 scramble section very carefully, moving one pair at a time through a number of the loose gullies. There could be considerable danger from rockfall with multiple parties on that section. Once down that part and relieved of harnesses, ropes, and helmets the trail down the south ridge in late afternoon light was a scenic delight. We all wished that we had more time up there on the south ridge meadows.
We reached the lake at 5:00 and ate, drank, and generally rested for another hour before leaving at 6:00. The trail down to the car went quite quickly (for us), as it was well graded and kind to people with flaky ankles (relatively few rocky sections). A mother and two bear cubs were encountered from a distance about two-thirds of the way down in a drainage area but we were well-warned by our trusty mountain dog. We arrived back at the car at 8:30. The last couple of mileswere a classic "zombie stroll" - carefully controlled fall down the trail aided by stout trekking poles. We were bushed.
This is a great, scenic day hike / climb but many of us felt an extra day would be nice to give us more time to enjoy the spectacular terrain and views of the south ridge and summit. And it would allow a visit to the east summit as well. We just need to find someone to carry our overnight packs up to the lake. Takers?
Stats:
15 miles RT; 6300 feet elevation gain; 7.5 hours up (inlcuding breaks), 1 hour on top, 5 hours down (including breaks).
Fantastic! I eyed Sherman from that switchback in the road on Sweetgrass Butte, figuring I would go in that way. Thanks for the great report on a lesser known peak.
We debated about the Sweetgrass Ridge route - especially while clambering over and under countless downed trees! I think the ridge route would be a fine route!
Nice, I've been eyeing that and Sunrise from a camp in the drainage, just haven't gotten to it. We did Burgett and Mcleod as snowshoe trips last year. Thanks for the TR and pics.
We thought Sunrise looked like an absolutey stellar hike also! I guess it will have to wait for us for another time (we don't get over here very often), but here is a ridge route that looked very nice to us from Goat Creek plus a photo that shows the peak and that ridge from Sherman.
Tue Aug 10, 2010 11:01 am Subject: Sherman Peak (Methow area) 8-8-10
It had been more than 30 years since I had tried an ascent of Sherman Peak near the Methow Valley. The first try, while in high school, ended on a snow-covered rock ledge in a storm above Copper Glance Lake. We wanted a decidedly more mellow (and hopefully successful) experience this time. We chose the Goat Creek – SW face route with advice from Beckey’s guide and our trusty topo map. The route on our accompanying map in this report is approximate (not a GPS trace).
Early in the morning we drove up the Goat Creek Road to just past Vanderpool Crossing where we turned off onto Forest Road 300. In 2.2 miles we came to the end of that road at an old logging landing (4600 ft). We came expecting to bushwack our way up along Goat Creek as there was no trail indicated on our maps, but we were delighted to find an old trail winding its way up valley. The trail was in decent shape but without recent maintenance (a number of large blowdowns). It wound along the slope just east of Goat Creek, through a number of timber stands with very high densities of dead or stressed trees.
At the third major stream junction (just under 2 miles at about 5200 ft) from the east side (according to the topo map, the one coming down from Burgett Peak), the trail came to an end at a very broken down old cabin. This ridge north of the stream was our planned objective, so we set out uphill. The going was mostly brush-free (through open forest) and the only obstacles were the frequent sections of fallen trees and snags that had us clambering over terrain resembling the start of a game of giant pick-up sticks.
The downed timber slowed things down and we worked our way up the increasingly well-defined ridge to about 6400 ft where it began to open up into patches of rocky terrain at 6400 ft. We scrambled easily up through these for about 200 ft elevation to where we got our first good views of the ridge leading north up toward the summit. We had thought that the easiest route might be to ascend to Point 7461 (just NW of Burgett Pk) and then generally follow the ridgeline, but with this new view it now looked much more direct to cross the basin to our north and ascend the next ridge up to the saddle just north of Point 7923 on the ridge. To do this we had to descend ugly, steep scree and cross the basin at about 6500 ft and then ascend a tree-filled gully (some nice alpine larches) to the next ridge north of us. On our descent we would descend the basin to about 6400 ft and gain the ridge leading down to the cabin ruins just below the rocky terrain (easier).
We followed this northern ridge up and contoured into the saddle north of Pt 7923 as planned on easy scree. From the saddle (about 7760 ft) we could finally see the summit of Sherman, which was a nice thing, as the clouds were thickening to the west.
From the saddle we contoured level W to round the next ridge with minor cliffs, gaining easy open scree fields that led generally N back up to the summit (8204 ft). We arrived on top 5 hours after we left the car (moving slowly – it is more likely a 4 hour trip for most parties). The view west across to McLeod Pk and Silver Star Mtn, both of which we had climbed a couple of years earlier, great was the view of Big and West Craggies, including the memorable SE ridge (rotten scree!) of Big Craggy that we had scrambled two years ago. Views north into the Pasayten and south into the Methow Valley were great as well.
The summit register on Sherman surprised us. It seems that few people make it up there – about 2 or 3 parties per year on most years (at least those that sign in). We were the first to sign in since July 2009 and the 19th group since 2001, when the Mountaineer’s register was placed. Included in the entrees was NWH’s Tom Sjolseth who was apparently trying to get into shape for a trip to the Pickets (did it work Tom?). The only other thing in the tube was an old Disneyland ticket that served as a register for some folks as far back as 1974.
A few people mentioned ascending the peak from a road in the Ortell Creek drainage (looks good on the map) as well as from Copper Glance Lake. We lounged on top for 1.5 hours it was such a pleasant temperature and the views were so nice.
The rain held off until our last mile. Bugs were present but not in great quantities. All said, a very pleasant ramble to a great, less-visited viewpoint!
Sun Aug 08, 2010 12:21 am Subject: Argonaut Peak - 8.4.2010
Great climb and a stellar report (as usual). This is something we've had our eyes on for the fall and your detailed information will be very handy! Bravo and thanks!
Fri Aug 06, 2010 4:29 pm Subject: Blanca Lake and the Columbia Glacier 8/4/10
This looks like a great place to explore. I've never been up there to the lake and the glacier. It looks like a place our boys would like given how much fun your boys had. It is great how you get them out there!
I was encouraged by Scrooge's comment that Peltoms' kids are part of his field team. When I stop to check out plants in the mountains (my profession), my boys just groan and roll their eyes .
Thu Aug 05, 2010 11:00 pm Subject: Glacier Peak - a family odyssey (July 31 - August 3)
Thanks again all for your kind words! We're always inspired by your stories and posts (including the boys - they love reading the trip reports - especially the ones with entertaining emoticons).
MO, our "secret" is hard to pin down, but the 2:30 wake up had something to do with two dozen flavors of jelly beans this time!
R2H, we've really enjoyed your posts with your boys - it is always good inspiration!
Matt, ah - I have been noticed! Yikes! Yup, I tend to be the one taking the pictures instead of in them!
Thu Aug 05, 2010 11:24 am Subject: Cascade Pass- Bucker NFace, Horseshoe, Boston-Sahale 7/30/10
Great trip and report guys - many thanks! This is a set of peaks we've been talking about heading to in the near future and this loop looks like a great way to go!
Great trip and nice nice pics. I like the idea of wading through Canyon Creek at the end - just wish I had had the presence of mind left to think of that!!!
- they are 9 and 12 years old). I'm glad to hear the crevasse provided only a good story and nothing more!
Takers? 
is hard to pin down, but the 2:30 wake up had something to do with two dozen flavors of jelly beans this time!