[Jake Robinson]

Trace, Damon, and I climbed these three peaks in one trip this week. I've wanted to do this trip for a long time and I knew this was the right group to make it happen. We dropped a car at Thunder Creek and started hiking from the Bridge Creek Trailhead at 10:30 AM on Monday. It was hot and smoky. Before we knew it, we'd hiked 15 miles to the Bridge Creek ford directly below the NE Buttress of Goode. After a knee-deep crossing, we proceeded up some talus towards the waterfall on the left, then climbed slabs to its right. I stupidly climbed some weird slab moves unroped through here and set a hand line for Trace and Damon. Once past the slabs, we climbed through alder tunnels and with only a little bushwhacking, reaching open terrain and a great tent site at ~5400.'

Damon fording Bridge Creek

Up to this waterfall, then climb slabs on the right

Waterfall from the slabs

Alder tunnel

Camp

NE Buttress comes down and right directly off the summit

We were moving towards the Goode Glacier at first light. Accessing the glacier was a bit tricky for us. We probably botched this part of the route...we went hard left then climbed through some icy serac sections, which was tricky in aluminum crampons and with a single axe. After getting onto the glacier, we weaved through some crevasses and found a decent access point to the NE Buttress at 6800'. As soon as the sun hit the glacier we started hearing giant "WHOOMPH"s and saw some serac collapses near where we had just walked. This got my blood pumping a bit and made me think we probably should have come earlier in the season. Damon led an awkward fifth class pitch onto the ridge crest and we started scrambling up the NE Buttress.

Goode alpenglow

Logan

Damon leading up to the crest

Once on the crest, we scrambled exposed and solid class 3/4 rock to 8200' where the ridge steepened into fifth class terrain. We'd lost quite a bit of time dealing with the glacier and were worried about being benighted on route. Damon is a much better/faster rock leader than Trace or I, so he agreed to lead pretty much the entire route to the summit. The climbing is mostly class 4/low 5 with a couple distinct 5.4 cruxes about 2/3 of the way up the ridge. Solid rock, positive holds, exposed climbing, and incredible views. Pure fun! Four or five long pitches led us to the huge ledge at 8600'. We were low on water at this point and found a snow patch around the corner, so we took a long break to melt snow. We also watched as the Crescent Mountain fire exploded into a huge mushroom cloud, enveloping the surrounding area with smoke.

Damon low on the NEB

Trace scrambling down low

Damon near where we started the roped pitches

Looking down from near the giant ledge

Crescent Mountain Fire

Fire blowing up

Logan

So glad to find this snow, we carried 3 liters each and it wasn't nearly enough in the baking heat

Looking down the route at Goode's shadow

Trace high on the NEB

From the ledge, we climbed the right-hand arete and headed for the summit. A mixture of simul-climbing and pitched climbing on low fifth class rock led us to the perfect bivy sites at the summit. There is a small tent site with just enough room for a small 2-person tent, and two small bivy sites. What a place! We boiled some water for dinner and tea and soaked in the evening views. This has to be one of the better campsites in the Cascades. It was warm, calm, and clear. We decided to skip the tent and sleep under the stars. It was surreal to watch the glow from the Crescent Mountain fire light up the surrounding mountains.

Buds on Goode

Fernow group and Bonanza

Glacier, Dome, Spire Point

Fire and Goode's shadow

Spider and Formidable

Jack and Ragged Ridge

McGregor

Sunset behind Baker

Alpenglow on smoke

Baker and Shuksan

It doesn't get much better than this

The next morning, we packed up camp and made three rappels to the ledge traverse to Black Tooth Notch. We'd heard this ledge was class 4, but we found no such route. I scoped it out and didn't like what I found - difficult and awkward moves with huge exposure. We belayed the traverse then made three rappels from the notch down into the SW couloir. From there it was just a standard Cascadian class 3 choss gully the rest of the way.

Sunrise over smoke layer

Rappels for breakfast

View from rappel

Traverse to Black Tooth Notch

Gully descent

Chossy descent, the usual

We made the short but chossy traverse over to Storm King. A mixture of snow, talus, and hideous scree brought us to the base of the peak with multiple gullies to choose from. Summitpost helped us find the correct gully.

Traverse to Storm King

Storm King

Fun

Incorrect gully on the left, correct gully on the right

From the top of the correct gully we traversed an awkward and fairly exposed class 3 ledge. After this we probably messed up the route. We kept traversing to a rib, then climbed class 3/4 to a notch just north of the summit. Damon and I descended a rotten and exposed gully and climbed some fifth class to the summit, while Trace proved wiser and asked for a belay. From the summit we rappelled off the east face, which seemed to be easy class 3 terrain. I also referenced a photo from Fletcher's TR and it seems he and Reed went this way and had no problem climbing and descending without a rope. Oops.

Damon and Trace working the ledge traverse

Goode from Storm King - NE Buttress runs continuously from the summit all the way down to the bottom of the photo

Damon rappelling off Storm King - we probably should have come up this way

We traversed back to the base of Goode's SW couloir route then descended a cairned route until we lost the trail in a recent burn. The old Goode climbers' trail doesn't really exist anymore but travel is easy enough if you stay right on the ridge. Once on the Park Creek Trail, we hiked a few miles up towards Park Creek Pass and camped in a mosquito breeding ground directly south of the pass.

Traversing back from Storm King

Descending through burn

Buckner from the Park Creek Trail

We camped somewhere in here and it was buggy as hell

In the morning we hiked over Park Creek Pass and found the climbers trail to Logan's Fremont Glacier route (at approximately 5800', just north of Park Creek Pass, marked with a cairn). The trail is indistinct in places and we lost it right at a confusing stream gully crossing. We climbed up the gully until we found the crossing at 6240' and continued on a trail/cairned route from there to the Fremont Glacier. The bugs, especially the flies, were awful.

Climbing to Park Creek Pass in the morning

Buckner alpenglow

Looking for a gully crossing

Buckner to Forbidden

Hiding from the bugs

Pleasant terrain to the Fremont

The Fremont Glacier is really mellow and soon enough we found ourselves at the hogsback formation that people use to access the scramble route on Logan. The hogsback was mostly melted out and required crossing a thin snow bridge above a deep moat. Luckily, we found a safe crossing immediately down and right of the hogsback. We stepped onto rock and climbed about 20 feet of class 4/low 5 to easier class 3 terrain above the hogsback and the standard route.

Current condition of the hogsback, we didn't think it was safe

The scramble route on Logan is easy, but three days of exposed no-fall-zone climbing was beginning to take its toll on my mental state. I took my time as we followed a cairned ledge traverse across an exposed gully, up a talus slope to a false summit, and finally up to the true summit. The views were exceptional even with the all the smoke.

Beginning the traverse on Logan

Talus to the false summit

Another false summit from the true summit

We made one rappel to get back to the glacier, then headed down. The descent was HOT. I had to stop about halfway through to sit in the shade of a larch grove and chug water. When we got back to our gear stash near Park Creek Pass, all I wanted to do was sleep. It's amazing the amount of energy that the heat takes out of me. We took a multi-hour break here waiting for the worst of the heat to pass. I think I drank 7 or 8 liters of water on this day and still ended up dehydrated when we got to camp.

Trace descending Logan

Exposure is present

Descending the Fremont

Descending with Sahale and Boston in the smoke

Logan larch

There was talk of slogging all the way out to the car that night, but the heat had taken its toll, and we decided to spend the night at Skagit Queen camp instead. The following morning we hiked out 15 easy miles to the car and it was pleasant and cool.

Thunder Creek shrooms

Skagit Queen mine ruins

Overall this is one of the most enjoyable trips I've ever done, made all the better by two excellent partners. Thanks for the trip guys!

Goode route

Logan route

[awilsondc]

Excellent work fellas! Looks like you had a good time! (See how I resisted going full pun there?! I deserve a gold star. ) I'm surprised it wasn't more smoky up there. That heat sounds miserable!

[neek]

Looks great, if somewhat terrifying!

[rstoddard24]

Awesome work u 3. Looks like an incredible trip. We also got very hot descending Logan; must have relaxed in the exact same larch grove.

[raising3hikers]

nice work connecting those 3 peaks keep on getting after it!

[Damonexplores]

It was a Black Diamond pole that had been taken apart into two separate pieces and girth hitched a piece of blue tat around. It looked to be a few years old.

[puzzlr]

This is a very impressive trip. Congrats on all the summits.

[Midnight Slogger]

Bodacious work gents, and very inspiring. No denying anymore your full-blown Bulger addiction, Jake...

[Jake Robinson]

Thanks Reed! And also thanks for expanding my vocabulary with every post. What's a Bulger?

[Gimpilator]

That's a very full itinerary. Cool trip!

[Matt Lemke]

Awesome photos! That one of logan from Goode high camp looks exactly like the one I took. Such a perfect place

[chandlerhaberlack]

Lol damn that's gotta be the first bulger meme I've ever seen. What an impressive trip - nice work guys! Super jealous.

[Stuke Sowle]

Figured you must have done a TR for this trip so thought I would stop by and fuel a bit of stoke for tomorrow despite my rather "mundane" route compared to this one. Excellent stuff Jake!

[Jake Robinson]

Thanks for the kind words Stuke. I would hardly call a 100 mile day hike "mundane", good luck out there!