Mike Collins Member
Joined: 18 Dec 2001 Posts: 3086 | TRs | Pics
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Beave and I teamed up along with another climber on Sunday to climb this peak located on the King Co/Chelan Co line. It overlooks Glacier Lake and Square Lake. Coming in at 6556' it is a good workout for a snowshoe romp and the route we took had minimal avalanche risk. We started out at about 2200 feet elevation at the trailhead for Surprise Lake. We took the trail to the outlet for Surprise Lake before heading upslope to reach Trap Pass. The crossing of Surprise Creek was a big surprise for me. I made the first crossing on a narrow tilted bridge. Once on the other side the snowbank gave way while facing the creek and I made a bellyflop into the freezing water below. I was soaked from crown to soles with another 9+ hours of hiking ahead. I hung my heavy soaked clothes in the tree and put on dry wear, except for my socks which were wrung out to a soggy rather than soaked degree of water penetration. My plastic boots had to poured out and I squeezed the inner liners as much as possible. This happened at 2800 feet. My toes were quite cold the entire hike "warming" a little on the downclimb from friction I suppose. Well after the outflow at Surprise Lake we followed the route of the PCT somewhat to the county line at the pass. There we continued on the ridge until about 6200 feet and traversed the slope to the east of Pt 6356 and Pt 6711. Just to the SE of 6711 is a well rounded ridge at elevation 6500. Beaves GPS helped out to determine the objective of Thunder Mtn as there are several other peaks in the area at about the same elevation. We went SW over the rounded ridge and snowshoed over Upper Thunder Lake. The final 200 feet of gain was on the east slope which had some avalanche potential. Our descent route was to drop down to a col between Thunder and Pt 6711 and then to plunge step our way down toward Surprise Lake and reconnect with our path at the outflow. This route down save us at least an hour of time. This route down however has considerable avalanche potential for 2000 feet if conditions are right. The route of ascent was forested for a great portion of the way. Car to car took about 10 hours with 4,500 feet of gain.
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