[raising3hikers]

Riddle Pk 8200' Last weekend, my son Ryan and I headed out for a trip above Holden. While waiting for the boat at Fields Point, we ran into Suzanne and Barry getting ready to board for a WTA trail trip on Domke Mtn. It was good to chat with them on the boat and we parted way at Lucerne. Ryan and I hopped on the bus (we made reservations so they knew we'd be there) and made it to Holden. We started hiking around 1:15pm on the TenMile Falls trail. It was snow free and since the trail above it towards Tenmile Pass has southern exposure, we didn't really run into constant snow until 4200'. We put on snowshoes and eventually had to find a place to cross the creek. We found a good log and crossed after the creek that drains from the pass.

Ryan crossing the creek

After the crossing, there burnt forest was full of blowdowns. We were aiming for a flat area to set camp at around 5800' and found it. This was also the last place we found running water. At this point, it was Ryan's decision to continue on to the summit of Riddle, or stay and set camp and rest. He decided to set camp while I continued on. I headed up a couple hundred more feet and then headed into the basin West of Riddle. From there, I could see my potential way up the mountain. I stayed to the left and made a rising traverse to get above the lower cliff bands.

West slopes of Riddle

little larch shadows

As I was crossing the under a central gully, it looked as if it would get me to the upper mountain and then to the upper South ridge. So I took it after putting my crampons on because the snow conditions were great for them. The gully got pretty steep in places, almost wish I had a second tool but the steps were good enough. I made it to the ridge and then the false summit. That's when I saw that I had to go back down a little bit and traverse some steeper snow on the North side to then get back up and scramble up to the true summit. That steep snow traverse luckily had the best bucket kicking steps of the trip and was not a problem. I reached the summit and lucked out that Riddle was still partly sunny while the peaks just a little to the West were socked in with snow showers.

WyEast and WyNorth

Castle Rock and Flora

I headed back down and made it back to camp much earlier than I had told Ryan. He had everything set up and was looking for some fire wood to have a nice fire while we ate dinner. It was getting cold quickly and we went to bed a bit after dark. In the morning, we found that our water bottles froze completely solid. We had to get moving so that we'd get back into Holden to catch the bus down to the lake by 10:45am. No snowshoes on the way out as the snow was very firm. We had much time to spare and rested while we waited for the bus.

Copper Pk

an icy waterfall

Ryan

We arrived at Lucerne and when the uplake boat arrived, we had the option to pay for an upgrade and go to Stehekin. Since this was Ryan's first time on Lake Chelan, I decided that I'd take him up to Stehekin and get some lunch at the restuarant. We returned an hour later on the boat back down the lake after a good trip with my son. Although, it's best to spend more days up in the upper lake than we did to make all that travel worth it, but it was worth it for me that Ryan was excited to do a unique trip like this that he had never done before but has wanted to over that last couple years.

[runup]

Making memories!

[Fletcher]

Awesome job Eric! Snow cover is looking really thin for late April over there.

[Stefan]

Good on the two of you!

[iron]

good times.

[b00]

cool! you are so lucky to have such great kids and to get to do a trip with one of them, awesome. ryan is such a good guy too! :>)

[ozzy]

Nice trip guys! Damn i need to get back in there! Thanks for the conditions update as well.

[Sadie's Driver]

R3H - it was great to see you and Ryan on the uplake boat! What a surprise. I was worried about the two of you because of the winds and the fact that it was getting cold so quickly that day. Glad all turned out ok. Fortunately, we didn't start trailwork until the next day . . . and it got progressively warmer. We had a FULL week of work - lots of fire blowdown and trail reconstruction on the Domke Mountain trail and then we went over to Prince Creek our last two days and rebuilt the Lakeshore connector trail. Great trip. Hope to see you and the boys on the trail again soon!