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Gimpilator infinity/21M
Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 1684 | TRs | Pics Location: Edmonds, WA |
I first saw the Bulls Tooth group from Big Chief in the winter on a trip with Josh Lewis. We were both like, “Wow! What’s that?”.
Bulls Tooth seen from Big Chief, November 2011
Yesterday Heather and I started on the upper Mill Creek connector trail which goes up to the PCT. I must say that the last portion of that access road is one of the roughest I’ve driven in WA. But 8.5 inches of clearance can do it.
Josephine Lake Bulls Tooth above lower Chain Lake
We hiked past Susan Jane and Josephine lakes, down the Icicle Creek trail to the Chain Lakes access trail. We decided to do the furthest out peak first, which is Doughgob. Along the way we were impressed by the unofficially named “Chan Lakes Peak” 6604’. I hoped we would get a chance to try it.
The Bulls Tooth, not the summit but a point north of the summit "Chain Lakes Peak" Lemool Bulls Tooth summit at left upper Chain Lake Nimbus group and K9
We hiked over a pass and followed the ridge north of Doelle Lakes. The trail along the ridge was sometimes well defined and sometimes not. At the final saddle we ascended the west ridge of the south peak and from that summit we continued north to the north peak which appears higher. No registers on either peak.
Jim Hill and Doelle Lake below Jim Hill Doughgob peaks "Chain Lakes Peak" Doelle Lake bounty! Bulls Tooth above Doelle the Bulls Tooth spire "Chain Lakes Peak" Doughgob peaks
The northern Bulls Tooth spire looked very impressive from Doughgob. To the east, the entire Chiwaukum Range was spread out before us, but some haze stymied my attempts to capture it with my camera. We retraced our route to the pass between Doelle and Chain Lakes.
Bulls Tooth the north Doughgob from the south Doughgob nice valley below Bulls Tooth Chiwaukums Big Chiwaukum traversing to the north Doughgob Lemool "Chain Lakes Peak" above the pass
WTF! Utter dismay and shock… Our forecast had been stellar for two days and here was a wall of low clouds rushing at us from the west. Rain was coming. Unbelievable.
retreating in the rain
We started our traverse to Bulls Tooth. Clouds dropped down and covered the summit. Then the rain started. Neither of us had brought an actual rain coat, just wind-breakers. I spotted a large overhanging boulder and we both squeezed in underneath it. I decided to wait an hour and see if the storm would blow through. Heather was tired from day-tripping Monument Peak and she promptly fell asleep.
rain shelter
After a half hour I started to get a little cold and 15 minutes later the rain stopped. I crawled out and told Heather I was going to try for the summit despite the white-out. She opted to stay under the boulder in case it started raining again.
white-out navigation
Navigating in the white-out was interesting, but I had a mental picture of what the route looked like. I also had Heather’s phone with an app called Gaia as a backup. It was my first time with that. I scrambled up to a notch between two peaks close together. I knew one of them was the summit, but couldn’t tell which was higher.
contestant #1 contestant #2
I scrambled up the east peak first and could tell it was lower. On the west peak I found the register. I was surprised to see very few ascents in general. Back at the overhanging rock Heather was still sleeping. She said she felt good after some naps.
the usual suspects bulls**t
We descended to the Chain Lakes and took a last look at the “Chan Lakes Peak”. The potential access slopes were steep heather which was now pretty wet. I decided not to try it. We continued past the last lake and then immediate turned right and ascended off-trail to the pass east of Lemool. The map indicates 200 feet of gain but the going was easy and it seemed more like 100 vertical feet.
Lemool above
We followed the east ridge up to the peak and once again I was really surprised to see how few ascents this peak gets. The weather was not improving and it appeared that it could start raining again at any moment. We high tailed it out of there and back to the car. Our round-trip time was 14.5 hours including 45+ minutes sitting under the boulder. Lemool was my 56th Back Court peak.
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Anish Member
Joined: 07 Sep 2014 Posts: 79 | TRs | Pics
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Anish
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Sun Aug 28, 2016 11:04 am
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I had fun even if it did rain!! Congrats on your Backcourt progress!
"Our way is not soft grass. It's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun." -Ruth Westheimer
"Our way is not soft grass. It's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun." -Ruth Westheimer
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awilsondc Member
Joined: 03 Apr 2016 Posts: 1323 | TRs | Pics
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lol, love the title and frustrated face summit selfie. It does suck when weather turns on you. :/ Bulls tooth looks awesome!
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Brushbuffalo Member
Joined: 17 Sep 2015 Posts: 1887 | TRs | Pics Location: there earlier, here now, somewhere later... Bellingham in between |
Gimpilator wrote: | Our forecast had been stellar for two days and here was a wall of low clouds rushing at us from the west. Rain was coming. Unbelievable. |
That's mountain weather for you ( sometimes anyway)
Gimpilator wrote: | Heather was tired from day-tripping Monument Peak and she promptly fell asleep. |
Stated so matter-of-factly! Anish day trips a remote Bulger then needs to take a snooze.....
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
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Anish Member
Joined: 07 Sep 2014 Posts: 79 | TRs | Pics
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Anish
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Sun Aug 28, 2016 2:37 pm
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Brushbuffalo wrote: | Anish day trips a remote Bulger then needs to take a snooze..... |
For the record I only fell asleep because I stopped moving!
"Our way is not soft grass. It's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun." -Ruth Westheimer
"Our way is not soft grass. It's a mountain path with lots of rocks. But it goes upwards, forward, toward the sun." -Ruth Westheimer
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Brushbuffalo Member
Joined: 17 Sep 2015 Posts: 1887 | TRs | Pics Location: there earlier, here now, somewhere later... Bellingham in between |
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
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NorDub Member
Joined: 17 Jul 2015 Posts: 56 | TRs | Pics Location: Redmond |
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NorDub
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Sun Aug 28, 2016 8:57 pm
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Awesome pics, that's a very nice area. That climb up from the valley to get to Chain Lakes is no joke haha.
The report we looked at also had Saturday as a pretty nice day! Yeah, that didn't work out as planned . That weather was rotten. We got stuck in the same mess over at Thunder Mountain Lakes. We tagged Thunder Mountain under mostly blue skies. By the time we got to Nimbus, we saw some serious weather coming in. By the time we got back to the lake, visibility was less than 20 yards.
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Brushbuffalo Member
Joined: 17 Sep 2015 Posts: 1887 | TRs | Pics Location: there earlier, here now, somewhere later... Bellingham in between |
NorDub wrote: | By the time we got to Nimbus, we saw some serious weather coming in. |
Ironic you had such timing. "Nimbus" refers to precipitating clouds, as in nimbostratus and cumulonimbus.
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
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Gimpilator infinity/21M
Joined: 12 Oct 2006 Posts: 1684 | TRs | Pics Location: Edmonds, WA |
NorDub wrote: | The report we looked at also had Saturday as a pretty nice day! Yeah, that didn't work out as planned . That weather was rotten. We got stuck in the same mess over at Thunder Mountain Lakes. We tagged Thunder Mountain under mostly blue skies. By the time we got to Nimbus, we saw some serious weather coming in. By the time we got back to the lake, visibility was less than 20 yards. |
That's a pretty big bummer. Being west of us, the system must have hit you first. I have a failed attempt on Nimbus from October 2008 and I'd like to return someday for the Thunder/Nimbus/Thor trio.
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NorDub Member
Joined: 17 Jul 2015 Posts: 56 | TRs | Pics Location: Redmond |
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NorDub
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Fri Sep 02, 2016 1:07 pm
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Ha! Good catch BrushBuffalo
Yah we didn't get Thor...another reason to go back!
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