[Pribbs]

GPS track: http://www.movescount.com/moves/move343363467 Not sure if you are able to download it. If not, PM me your email and I will send gpx file. Now that the fugitive was caught and we wouldn't get murdered, we headed to the sunny Teanaway! The plan was to do Esmeralda Peak then someone in our group suggested we also do DeRoux Peak. We headed out at 8:15. The trail was in great shape aside from a ton of annoying blowdowns. At the top of the first big set of switchbacks is where some patchy snow began in the shade of the forests, but easy to cross. Do not miss DeRoux Falls! You will hear the waterfall as you pass it. As about 2.7 miles/5100 feet, we found a good place to cross the creek. We continued on through some very pretty meadows with bundles of shooting star flowers.

We reached the eastern tip of the big switchback at 3.8 miles, where there is a giant boulder. And up we went, pretty much straight up and slightly right, coming to a large talus field that we hugged the left side of to the top of it.

At 6100 feet we finally hit snow, alongside another large talus field topped by a nice talus point viewpoint at the top.

From here we went straight up the snow toward the saddle between the two summits.

We first visited the western of the two peaks, where the register is. There was an exciting narrow snowy spine to ascend. The views were so great, looking up the Cle Elum Valley behind Hawkins Mountain toward Mt. Daniel, Fortune, South Ingalls, Stuart and range, the eastern peaks of the Teanaway, south to Rainier.

We then headed down the snowy spine to the saddle and found a good place to scramble up rock to the summit marked on the USGS map. We noticed that this summit was indeed shorter than the western one.

Next the plan was to climb DeRoux Peak across the valley. We examined the mountain for a good route up. We noticed a ridge in the foreground of the peak that rose up to the right, with two giant distinct rock outcroppings that look like a pair of breasts. The plan was to aim for these two big rocks on what we considered to be the north ridge of DeRoux. So we dropped back down to the trail and hiked back down to where it returns to the meadows along the creek. We crossed the creek at 5100 feet and started angling up to the right. We had to climbed up some steep and brushier timber but reached a little ridge at about 5300 feet. We essentially followed this ridge steeply up until we reached one of the two giant rock outcroppings we were aiming for. We ascended up to the left side of it until we reached the top of a much more open and distinct ridge at 5700 feet with a view of the peak ahead. Nice view across to Hawkins and back to Esmeralda. We continued up the ridge to the very top of the trees, then aimed for the right (NE) shoulder of the peak, avoiding all the steepest snow that was to the left. We had to ascend some steep snow but it was short until we reached the rock that we were able to scramble up to the summit ridge, and then it was a short walk from there.

We descended down the standard east ridge that leads toward Koppen Mountain, staying just right on open slopes whenever the ridge top was brushy. There were some rocky areas of the ridge to scramble down and some great viewpoints of Hawkins, Esmeralda, and down valley toward Teanaway and Iron. The wildflowers were also incredible, with balsamroot, lupine, and paintbrush headlining the show. The lower we got, the more we started to follow a faint path until the path was fairly easy to follow toward the bottom of the ridge until we finally reached the pass before Koppen where the trail junction is.

We hiked down the 1.5 miles of switchbacks and then the final mile+ back to the trailhead. Back on the DeRoux trail, we realized that all the blowdowns were cleared since! So thanks to the forest service for doing that! We returned to the trailhead at 5:30pm. Over 11 miles with 4500 feet of gain.

[eli4]

looks like a fun trip - did you guys happen to look down on gallaher head lake and see what snow cover was like in the meadow between gallaher head/hawkins massif and ezmarelda?

[Pribbs]

The lake was all snowed in still. Meadows along trail around 5000-5200 feet are melted out.