[cartman]

Larch Land

Morning on Azurite

Larches and Ballard

Continuing yet again to look for another obscure Cascades 7000er to climb, I recruited David, he recruited James, and the day before we were to leave Eusebio rings me up from Portland and asks if I have a trip going, so we were 4 from Seattle for an overnight in the Pasaytens where I was hoping the larches still had some color. Syncline is the 7560'+ peak south of Tatie Peak, the high point of the ridge line just east of the much more impressive ridge that runs from Azurite to Ballard. I'd been wanting to do Syncline for years, and a recent report showed fine larches at Grasshopper Pass, so now seemed like the right time. Day 1: Slate Peak, Grasshopper Peak and camp at Grasshopper Pass Eusebio volunteered his car and we made the nearly four hour drive to Slate Pass to warm up on the half mile road walk to Slate Peak.

Slate Peak Lookout

Crater and Jack

The skies hadn't quite cleared yet, making for some moody and interesting cloud play on the distant peaks.

Syncline in the foreground, Azurite and Ballard beyond

Ballard

Moody Pasayten Peak and Buckskin Ridge

Haystack

Cone does not look very conelike from Slate Peak

Only David and I had been to Slate Peak before, so the lookout and views were new for half the group.

Lookout

Returning to the car, we drove back to Harts Pass and took the side road to the PCT South TH at 6400'. Since we only had a 5 mile backpack to camp at Grasshopper Pass via the easy 800' of gain on the PCT, we knew we had plenty of time to wander along at a sedate pace to enjoy the views on this marvelous open trail.

Tatie

Syncline

Soon we came to the first...

Larches!

Not surprisingly, they were not as golden as hoped this far into October,

A bit past prime

but the fallen needles were magical in their own way.

Fairy dust

Farther along passing Tatie the color did improve a bit.

Golden larches on the PCT

Cone Mountain

Larches and Light

Continuing on the open trail,

Around Tatie

around first Tatie then past Syncline on its east face, we soon reached Grasshopper Pass and found good camping with a fire ring just south of the pass proper.

Approaching Grasshopper Pass

Grasshopper Pass

Camp at Grasshopper Pass

Some good larches and our first look at our peak for today.

Larch Land

Grasshopper Peak

Once camp was all set up we were off to do Grasshopper Peak, the first high point south of the pass. Route was along the PCT for a hundred yards or so, then along the bootpath that follows the ridge.

On the way

Soon we reached the 7125' summit,

Fast grasshoppers

and could immediately see that this would be the only high point for the day, as the ridge farther along looks nasty, even more so than the picture suggests.

Handcock Ridge

Arralde

A good view to a trip from last year on Delancy Ridge and Flagg Mtn,

Flagg and Cat Leap

and the higher peaks to the west and south.

Cat Leap and Straight Ridge

Cat Leap and the Needles

Holliway, Tower and Golden Horn behind

More views:

Azurite

Ballard

Devils Peak and Robinson

After a nice long break it was time to return to camp and gather firewood for the cool evening to come.

Syncline

On the way back, Grasshopper Pass and Syncline

A few more larch shots on the way,

Larches and Ballard

Tilting at larches

Comet

and back to the pass.

Back to the pass

We gathered a decent bit of fallen branches, and for the first time I used a simple firestarter made from ingredients I'd purchased for all of $2 at the dollar store: cotton balls coated with Vaseline. This not only has the advantage of being cheap, light, and easy to make, since Vaseline is a petroleum product it burns well, and has the additional benefit of being waterproof. We got the fire stoked to a good flame fairly quickly, and enjoyed the warmth on this cool and calm starlit night. Day 2: Syncline, Tatie, Cone, and Grasshoppers on Dickey We packed up camp and were up and moving by the time the sun had lit up the ridges. Returning to the pass next to Syncline,

Syncline start

the brilliant morning sunlight illuminated the slopes and peaks for some fine early photography.

Morning on Azurite

The PCT at Grasshopper Pass

Grasshopper Peak & Pass, Tower and Golden Horn beyond

David and James moved quickly up the south ridge while Eusebio and I made our own way initially through rock and krummholz, then as the stunted trees got thicker we found a way to the left on open rocky terrain.

Turning the corner onto the ridge

Soon we topped out on the first bump,

David ahead

and then to the south summit.

Jet Peak

David on the south peak

One thing that struck me here was the way the little plants hung on tenaciously to the otherwise barren soil. A few grasses and small flowering plants, and little clumps of moss here and there.

Holding on

Now all on the south summit, the ridge to the true summit at first glance looked intimidating,

The ridge to the true summit

but a quick look at the west slopes looked straightforward, and it turned out to be so, either directly on the ridge or just below on the west side.

Beginning the ridge walk

A fun and scenic ridge walk and soon we were on the summit of Syncline, at 7560'+ our high point for the trip.

Final ridge walk

David on the summit of Syncline

Syncline summit crew

One thing all of the peaks here have in common is the superb location for photos of many of the highest peaks in the state. From the summits of Syncline, Tatie and Cone, we could see nearly a third of the Bulger List as the three peaks gave somewhat different vantage points and angles for a observing 30 or more of the hundred highest summits in Washington.

Ballard

Eusebio and Azurite

Black Peak

Crater and Jack

The Pasaytens

Osceola, Ptarmigan, Carru, Lago

Robinson

Good views of nearby peaks too:

Cone

Tatie and the PCT

After a nice long break and with miles still to go, we started down the class 2/3 north ridge toward our next objective.

Next, Tatie

On the way

Larches below

Eusebio

Looking back

With fresh powder snow on this side, we moved right onto the lower angled broad NE side of the slope and booted down in anywhere from 4-8" of snow to the Syncline/Tatie saddle.

Snow on the North Slope

The snow descent

Looking forward to Tatie

David and James

Once we reached this I decided to pass on the long ridge that led from Tatie to Dickey, the peak to the north of Tatie, and told the others to go on ahead while I made my way at a more leisurely pace to the summit of Tatie. The south ridge of Tatie is more chossy than the south ridge of Syncline but not difficult.

Tatie choss

Krummholz

Syncline

The others topped out,

David on Tatie

Tatie Party

and after another break they took off for Dickey while I worked my way up the somewhat tedious junky rock to the summit of Tatie, 7386'.

More choss fun

Tatie summit block

I'd been up Tatie once before linking it from the other side via Cone Mtn on a great solo trip seven years earlier. Given the long ridge the others had to run for their bonus peak,

Dickey

I knew I had plenty of time to hang out in the wonderful warm October sun on this perfect weather day. So I took some more shots of the scenery,

Crater and Jack

Jack

Shuksan

Pasayten Pk, Buckskin Ridge and Slate Pk lookout

Lookout zoom

Robinson

Syncline

then used the zoom on the heavier camera I had decided to bring on this trip to capture the others as they reached the summit of Dickey.

Grasshoppers on Dickey

Dickey conquerors

Once the others began the return to Tatie, I packed up and began the super easy descent and ridge ramble toward Cone Mtn.

Cone awaits

'Bye Tatie

Easy ridge walk

About midway between the two peaks the PCT rises to the ridgeline and follows it a short ways until diving off again onto the south slopes.

Return to the PCT

There is a bootpath that leaves the trail and follows the ridge for a ways,

And a bit of trail snow

Distant Tatie

before disappearing in the choss and stunted trees. Once below the steeper class 2/3 summit block, I took another long break before climbing the rather loose rock on the west ridge of Cone. This turned out to be the loosest rock of the trip.

All up now

Cone choss

Topping out on a minor bump I walked the easy short summit ridge to the top of Cone, 7405'.

Summit Cone

The ridge from Tatie

Syncline

Ninetynine Basin

Again, more time for pics of the Big Boys.

Black Peak

Golden Horn

Tower

Needles

Robinson

Devils

From here, I could even see the biggest one of all--Bonanza, the highest non-volcanic peak in the state.

Bonanza

More time to chill, eat, and soak up the sun until the others made their way up.

Eusebio arrives on Cone

Pleased with their bonus peak and the superb weather and views, we hung out here for a good half an hour till it was time to wander back down to the trail.

Mountain pine

A short scramble on the east ridge, then we began the several hundred feet of descent on loose rocks making sure to stay close all the way to avoid rockfall hazards.

Typical descent slope

About halfway to the trail the talus gave way to small scree as we descended via the path of least resistance down to the PCT. Then it was a pleasant walk for a mile or so back to the car.

Robinson from the PCT

We had thought about adding Harts Peak 6828' to finish out the trip, but as I'd done it a few years earlier and we were all more interested in food, we left it for another day and drove out in daylight to see the evening sun on the beautiful views and fall colors of the Methow Valley from high on the Harts Pass road. This was a fun and very enjoyable trip. This area is always great for high trail starts and wide open vistas in larch country, and this amazing stretch of beautiful October weather was a perfect match to the scenery. It was great to get the guys into an area new to them, and they had a lot of fun running high open ridges with even higher peaks all around. All in all, an excellent trip up fairly easy peaks in absolutely fantastic weather. 14 miles, 3800' gain (a bit more for the others) Eric J. Johnson

[Ski]

cool!

[Brushbuffalo]

I love your trip reports and photos, Mr. Larch!

[JustJoe]

Thanks for the great TR. Fantastic photos and very thoroughly documented. What was the water situation for you guys? Carry-in, melt snow or were streams running? Thanks again!

[cartman]

For water, all snow. No running water on the route.

[Bernardo]

A great feast for the eyes. Must have been great in real time.

[Kenji]

You must be the group of four on Grasshopper Peak, I recognize those tents in the meadow. We were the two coming down the peak. We car-camped below the LO and hiked the Buckskin ridge Sun. Beautiful Fall weekend!

[cartman]

Kenji, I thought that might be you from your Facebook photo but I wasn't sure. This is you and your partner on the top of Grasshopper: