[Eric Gilbertson]

Six Washington Top 200 Mountains car to car: Apex Mountain (8,297ft), The Pope/Chewuch (8,264ft), Wolframite Mountain (8,137ft), Bauerman Ridge (8,044ft), Arnold Peak (8,091ft), Horseshoe Mountain (7,956ft) October 12, 2019 Eric Gilbertson 59 miles, 11,000ft gain, 3:30am Saturday to 7:20am Sunday (28 hours continuous moving, mostly breaking trail through snow) Trailhead – 3:30am Apex – 10:15am Pope – 11:45am Wolframite – 2:15pm Bauerman Ridge – 4:30pm Arnold – 10pm Horseshoe – 11:30pm Trailhead – 7:20am

The route

Alpenglow a few hours into the hike

Apex seen from the surprisingly well-maintained tungsten mine buildings

I wanted to return to the remote Pasayten Wilderness to check out the fall colors and tag some washington top 200 peaks. There was a group of 6 peaks I hadn’t yet done just east of my trip from last weekend. It looked like I could string together a ~60 mile loop hike to hit them all, with a bit of off-trail travel. Unfortunately only Saturday looked like good weather in that area, and NOHRSC satellite images showed quite a bit of snow above 6,000ft. But it sounded perhaps possible to me to do this as a long day hike Saturday in the good weather. I’d day-hiked Reynolds Peak last October from highway 20 in a 57-mile, 21-hour day trip to avoid fire closures, so it seemed feasible. However, that trip was about 50 miles on trail with only 7 miles off trail, and had very little snow. This trip looked to be 46 miles on trail with ~13 miles off trail, with a lot of snow. Approximately 40 miles of the loop would be snow covered, and I would have nobody to share trail breaking duties with. Also, I would be climbing six mountains instead of one. I figured I would give the trip a shot, though, and worst case I would probably just be moving slower than I hoped and the trip would spill over into Sunday morning. I planned to go as light as possible to maintain speed, so wouldn’t bring any overnight gear. I also made the significant decision to hike in trail runners and micro spikes instead of hiking boots, and not bring snowshoes (which I would later regret). The last decision was which trailhead to start at. Starting at the Cathedral Driveway trailhead (the standard trailhead for Windy Peak) would shave off about 5 miles from the round trip hike, but was at least an hour farther to drive to than the closer Thirty-Mile trailhead. I decided on the Thirty-Mile trailhead to get more sleep the night before, and since I had never been to that trailhead before.

Panorama from Apex summit

Friday evening I drove out to Winthrop and arrived at the Thirty-Mile trailhead at 10pm. It was tempting to start right then with the good weather, but I knew it would be important to get at least a few hours of sleep so I would move more efficiently for the long hike. By 3am I was awake and moving by 3:30am. I packed as light as possible, with just some food, extra clothes, micro spikes, water, and mini gaiters in my pack. The trail was in excellent shape with no blowdowns. Snow started around 6,000ft and would continue for the next 40 miles of my hike. Most of those miles would be postholing, and many off trail. About 14 miles in I unexpectedly came to some old mining structures near the border with the Boundary Trail. It was apparently the remains of an old tungsten mine, and the living quarters were maintained and in excellent shape. The snow got deep enough here that I put on my mini gaiters and micro spikes, which would stay on for about the next 20 hours. I turned west on the Boundary trail heading for my first peak, Apex Mountain. The snow was just deep enough to be annoying to break trail, so to minimize trail breaking distance I avoided a big bend in the trail by bushwhacking straight across a big boggy meadow up to the pass north of Apex. From here I postholed up the north ridge to the summit of Apex around 10:15am. Surprisingly I actually found the summit register (I hadn’t been able to find any in all the snow the previous week). I signed in and admired the impressive view of Cathedral Peak nearby, then headed back down.

Looking across at Cathedral and Amphitheater

Mountain lion tracks (?)

Wolf tracks (?)

At the pass I regained the trail and saw a set of ski tracks. This must have been the guys whose tracks I had seen in the morning. But the snow was so thin and patchy at the pass area that they must have been scratching up their skis quite a lot. I headed west on the Boundary Trail from the pass, and the ski tracks soon turned back to boot tracks. My next peak would be The Pope (aka Chewuch). This peak has 390ft of prominence according to peakbagger, so in theory wouldn’t make the 400ft cutoff to be on the top 200 list, but it is still on the official version of the list nevertheless. Luckily the trail goes pretty close to it, so it’s only a slight side trip. I hiked to the bend in the trail below the southeast slopes, then hiked up the southeast slopes to the summit. I then followed the southeast ridge of Pope over Barchester Towers, then plunge stepped down gentle snow slopes to the Barchester-Wolframite col. I post holed up the gentle west slopes as the skies got darker. By the time I topped out around 2:15pm the mountains to the southwest were socked in the clouds and it was starting to snow. Interestingly, I saw two sets of fresh boot prints on the summit of Wolframite. I suspected they were the optimistic skiers, though I did not see any ski tracks. From the summit I considered regaining the trail, but decided instead to shave off some distance and go cross country. I descended to the northeast basin of Wolframite, then crossed just below a talus field and climbed up to the 7000ft col. From there I bushwhacked down to the Boundary trail.

More views of Cathedral with the larches

Looking back at Apex

The US-Canada border clearly visible from The Pope/Chewuch

The snow depth on the trail was just enough that I wished I’d brought snowshoes, so about shin deep. If these conditions kept up, I knew I would be in for a very long day. While I didn’t encounter any more human tracks to help with the trail breaking, I saw lots of animal tracks. Two sets of tracks, in particular, were on at least 10 miles of the boundary trail, and did help me a bit with postholing if I carefully stepped in them. I took pictures of them and later learned they were mountain lion and wolf tracks. I soon crossed sheelite pass and started heading up the southwest slope of Bauerman Ridge. Here the snow got deeper, up to knee deep, and progress was slow up the steep slope. Eventually around 4:30pm I scrambled up the last rock outcrop to the summit. By then the skies had cleared, and it looked like the snow squalls were over for the time being. I postholed across the ridge through some very deep drifts, then dropped down to the col below Teapot Dome and down to the Boundary trail, which I followed for the next few hours. Just before Horseshoe Pass, well after dark, I left the trail (or at least the place where I suspected the trail was buried under all the snow) and started up the southwest slopes of Arnold. This was pretty tough trail breaking, what I’ve heard referred to as pie-crust snow by early Antarctic explorers. It’s the kind where some steps sink in deep, but others don’t sink at all, and the unpredictability makes things very difficult.

On Wolframite summit

Approaching Bauerman Ridge

Skies clearing out to the west

There were occasionally patches of melted-out grass on south aspects that helped, and by 10pm I crested the summit of Arnold at a half-circle rock structure. It’s worth noting that I was wearing trail runners and micro spikes through all the postholing and, other than my feet being wet, I had no problems. I think I managed to make this work because I never stopped moving for more than about 5-10 minute food breaks on the whole trip, so never let my feet cool off enough to be a problem. I reached Horseshoe Pass around 10:30pm and took a break on a dry patch underneath a tree. I was running pretty low on food by that point, having underestimated the calories I’d be burning with so much postholing. I think I had one cookie, 2 bars, and half a bag of salty trail mix left to get me the remaining 25 miles back to the trailhead. Under that tree I seriously contemplated bivying for the night. It seemed like it would be so nice to just curl up and go to sleep, since I had already been going hard for 19 hours. But then I remembered that the weather was supposed to be bad the next day. And that I was not really prepared to bivy in bad weather. I could probably wear all my layers and lay down on my pack, but I would likely just be doing situps and pushups all night to stay warm. If I wasn’t actually going to be sleeping, I figured I might as well be hiking while the weather was still good.

Windy Peak at sunset

The moon rising over Arnold and Horseshoe in the distance

The last rays of light to the west

I soon started moving again, and broke trail up to a point just west of Horseshoe Mountain. From there I headed straight up the slope, pushing through difficult pie-crust snow, to reach the summit at 11:30pm. For some reason it seemed satisfying to have summitted each of the six peaks in the same day, which wouldn’t have happened if I were 30 minutes slower. Just as I sat down to eat my last cookie I felt a few flakes of snow hit my face. The storm was coming in approximately when the WRF had expected, but luckily this was the last major above-treeline section of my planned trip. I quickly plunge-stepped back down into the trees to regain the trail as the snow picked up. I lost the trail a few times, but eventually refound it. I was tempted to just bushwhack, but remembered there would at least be fewer blowdowns on the trail. The trail descended to a icy swampy area, then started ascending to Windy Peak. At the northwest ridge of Windy Peak I got to an intersection that pointed to trail 306 around Topaz mountain. That trail looked like pure bushwhacking as I suspected, so I continued towards Windy Peak.

On the summit of Arnold (the last picture I took at night before the snowstorm started)

Sunrise at the Chewuch River near the trailhead

Nice fall colors at the trailhead

For some reason I thought I could take a shortcut around the west side of a bump on the ridge instead of taking the trail around the east side. This resulted in some spicy scrambling around some cliffs, which was probably not advisable at 3am in a snowstorm. I eventually regained the trail, then traversed around the peak at 7,700ft at the edge of intermittent treeline. I soon gained the southwest ridge of Windy Peak, a route I had taken before and was familiar with. This was pretty comforting, knowing that I would not be covering any new terrain between there and my car. I contemplated tagging Windy Peak also, but I had already climbed it twice before (2016 and 2018) and the weather was pretty nasty, so decided against it. I plunge-stepped down the slope, and eventually found the trail next to windy creek. I followed the trail down until the snow ended around 5,500ft and turned into a cold rain. I hiked for a few hours in the rain and finally reached my car at the trailhead at 7:20am in the continuing rain, just a bit after sunrise. I checked my GPS and had traveled 59 miles, which was a new personal best for me in one push. Amazingly I didn’t have any blisters on my feet, and wasn’t even sore. I was pretty tired, though. I quickly cooked up some ramen noodles for dinner (breakfast?), sheltered from the rain under the back hatch of the forester. I then threw out the sleeping bag and took a nap for two hours. By 11am I started driving back, and made it to Seattle at a reasonable hour. Link to full report and more pictures

[RichP]

Dude, don't wear yourself out. But seriously, your day trips would take me a week to do.

[awilsondc]

I love seeing your reports, Eric. It's cool to see you do things few humans are capable of. I hope you appreciate your own bad assness! haha. Keep it up man, and thanks for sharing these trips with us!

[Gimpilator]

[Gimpilator]

Has there ever been a more extreme peakbagger? I think not.

[Matt Lemke]

How was Afghanistan???

[Brushbuffalo]

Yet another of the astounding endurance feats ( feets!😁) of Eric.

[Blowdown]

59 Miles ... including postholing? You, sir, are an animal! Well done!

[Bootpathguy]

[HitTheTrail]

Epic feat for sure. But a lot like what the Warren Miller ski movies became. When it is something you know you could not possibly do yourself (or wouldn't try) it becomes harder to relate or appreciate.

[wildcat]

Great job man! Mega caloric effort! Keep it going, be safe!

[markweth]

Wow. What an impressive feat. I did a backpacking trip in that area last year but didn't go up any summits (which I regret, looking back). Thanks for sharing the TR and pictures!

[Brushbuffalo]

Eric's achievements can be compared to those of climber/ ultrarunner Jared Campbell. Keep it up and some may have glimmers of Killian Jornet in mind. Oh wait, I just did. That is some exalted company indeed.

[GaliWalker]

That has to be the most impressive hiking trip report written on NWHikers.

[pcg]

My first response was... Why did you do this? Wow, what a trek! But for me, the answer to make it all worthwhile would be finding the lynx and wolf tracks. I believe that is a left front lynx track and not cougar, because of the tell-tale ice cream cone outline that comes from the furry foot. Note how the wolf track shows the toe pads right to the edge of the snow print. That's because he doesn't have a furry foot. Neither do cougars, but lynx do. I've found tracks of both in the Pasayten, but have yet to see either.