[Matt]

Dates:  4/1/00 – 4/2/00
Peaks:  Sonny Boy 6971, Point 5954, “Sunny Girl” 6960
Party: mtnmike, Stefan, Matt

This trip is from April 2000, but I’m posting it now because I’ve received many questions about it.
Actually, it’s all been the same question from Guiran, but he’s asked it many times.

Sonny Boy is located in a particularly scenic spot, at the end of a pair of long ridges extending north toward the Cascade River Road, with Kindy Creek and the Buckindy Range on its west, and South Fork Cascade River and the whole Ptarmigan Traverse on its east.

This trip featured one of the most spectacular camps I’ve experienced.  In fact, the camp ended up with a full-page photo in Backpacker magazine.  (See the Epilogue section)

It also featured my fastest drive ever to the Cascade River Road.  (See the Prologue section.)

And it featured some of my favorite views of peaks rising like islands amid a sea of clouds, as a tide of fog climbed up below us while we ascended to the summit, and then magically dispersed when we descended.


One other note, the photos are scans I did long ago from old film negatives.  I haven’t had time to go back and re-scan them or clean them up, so some are rather grainy.

Prologue: Better Late Than Never

It had been a frustrating spring.  Bad weather had cancelled all my trips.  But this weekend promised sunny skies for Sonny Boy.  I didn’t know anything about the area, but Mike & Stefan had the route planned out.  I awoke Saturday morning to find that I had forgotten to turn on my alarm.  By the time I threw together my stuff and got to the P&R, I’d be a full hour late.  None of us had cell phones back then.  I knew they’d be long gone before I could get there.

Nooo!!!

Back then, I wouldn’t usually travel solo in the backcountry.  But the sun was shining, and I so wanted to get out.  Plus, this route had an exceptionally well-defined ridge to follow.  On the map, it looked like someone had just drawn one sharp arc after another, leading upward 5 miles and 5000 feet to the intended camp.  Higher up, it became rougher, but by then we’d be on snow, so I figured I could follow their tracks.

Since they would have reduced their gear after my absence, I threw in my bivy sack and some extra fuel, and raced north to try to catch up.  I set a record time driving to Marblemount, 1:35 from downtown Seattle.  It turns out you can get up to 80mph on the straightaways north of Rockport, and even up to 60mph on some parts of the Cascade River Road.  On the Found Creek Road #1570, a creek was cutting across the road at one point, but my Corolla only scraped a little bit when I drove over it.  I turned left onto Sonny Boy Road (the side road that crosses Kindy Creek), and found Mike's truck parked a couple hundred yards past the creek, at the base of the ridge.

Trip Report

Approach Hike: Ridge West of Sonny Boy Creek

From the parking spot, I had to scramble up a steep embankment, but then found a bit of old road leading west to the abandoned Kindy Creek trail. I followed the trial upward a couple hundred feet, but stayed on it too long, which led me below the steep east side of the ridge, so I had to scramble up again to get on the ridge crest.  From there, the ridge was a steady moderate climb for the next couple miles.  Circa 3000 feet I began to hit snow, and was reassured to find Stefan and Mike’s tracks.  Actually, it was sort of a relief to just follow their tracks at my own pace, and not worry about keeping up with them or slowing them down.  The tracks kept me on course as the ridge got much steeper before Point 5775 and then made a steep sidehill traverse to bypass Point 5785.


As I came over these points, I could see a fantastic sight mile ahead of me.  Perched way high on a snow crest, with magnificent peaks spread around it, was a bright yellow tent with figures in a gray coat and red coat standing by it.  Following the ridge onward, I arrived at camp to surprised greetings from the others, who had arrived about two hours earlier.


It was a beautiful evening in camp – clear skies, warm air, no wind.  We enjoyed the views while the sun sank into an orange haze in the west.


Approach Stats:  5.1 miles, 5200 cumulative gain, 7:30 hours.

Sonny Boy Summits

In the morning, we awoke to find fog rising below us to fill all the valleys.  As we headed upward toward the summits, the vaporous sea rose behind us, covering our camp, but leaving the summits clear.


The route to the summits was simple – follow the ridge upward, then traverse west behind all the summits, circling around the reach the twin higher summits from their south side.  When I arrived a little behind the others, they were already posing each on their own summit.


The tide of clouds had risen to about 6400 feet by now, so all the surrounding summits stood out as individual islands, with the intervening lowlands hidden below the puffy white surface.  At some of the higher divides, we could watch the clouds flow like waterfalls over the edges into adjacent drainages.


When we headed back down to camp, the fog magically dissipated so that our camp was back in clear air by the time we arrived.


Stats:  3 miles round trip, 1200 cumulative gain (800 net), 3 hours travel, 1 hour on summit

Exit Hike: Ridge East of Sonny Boy Creek

We made a loop trip by exiting via the ridge on the other side of Sonny Boy creek, which also included the prominences of Points 5994 and 6160 (aka Sonny Girl).

First the route dropped down to the 5500-foot col above Sonny Boy Lake No. 2, and back up to Point 5994.  Then down again to the 5400-foot col above Sonny Boy Lake No. 1, and back up to a minor 5600-foot prominence.  Then a smaller down, up, down, and further up toward Sonny Girl.

By now I was tired, so I bypassed the climb over Sonny Girl by traversing on the west side.  This included a bit of steep side-hilling, but brought me around to the ridge heading northwest from Sonny Girl, which we wanted to descend.  At that time, I hadn't yet become enlightened about the sacred importance of 400-foot prominences, so I left an orphan there.  (Note, the high point is actually the southern 6160 summit, not the 6139 point marked on the USGS map.)  Mike and Stefan went over the top, but on the north side encountered terrain steep enough that they had to rappel briefly in the trees.


Then it was just down the nose of the ridge, with a somewhat steep section midway, till we reached the road and walked back to the cars.


Exit Stats:  6.7 miles, 1500 cumulative gain, 6500 cumulative descent, 6 hours
Total Trip Stats: 14.8 miles, 7900 gain

Epilogue: Featured in Backpacker Magazine

That summer, Mike was testing convertible tents for an article in Backpacker magazine.  When the October 2000 issue came out, the title page for the article was our Sonny Boy camp.


Postscript: Some other pictures of the Sonny Boy Ridges



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"Matt, you are truly full of it.  But you take great --- pics, in spite of that."  Scrooge

[Magellan]

Thanks for the great TR Matt.  The pictures are fab and how fun to be in the pages of Backpacker Magazine.

[tazz]

sweet report Matt. now this is the stuff I have been wanting to see!  good stuff you guys! 

[Guiran]

Thanks - Matt, now I really need to get this one in.

[Stefan]

good times.

its nice to see I was using much of that same equipment 8 years ago instead of contributing to landfill.

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Art is an adventure.

[paultkuhn]

Fantastic Matt. Now those pictures are awesome. Some of them were sort of John Scurlock-esque. Especially the ones down to the PT peaks.

Hey, in the picture down to Dome Elephant Head sticks out pretty well.

[GeoTom]

Sweet 

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This space for rent

[GaliWalker]

So many good shots! Really, really nice.

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'Gali'Walker => 'Mountain-pass' walker
bcfc53: "...don't you ever forget your camera!"
Photography site: http://galiwalker.zenfolio.com/

[dicey]

[goats gone wild]

Matt, I'm really glad you resurrected this TR.  The trip was before my time on NWHikers, and I would have hated to miss it.  It has some beautiful pictures & awesome narrative.

Your description of the fog/clouds rolling in brought back some strong memories for me.  It's something to see voids being filled and islands created.  And your pictures do it justice. 

The picture of the tent on Backpacker is supreme, as is the picture of Stefan & Mike on their own Sonny Boy peaks.    Good job!!

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.....leaving me wanting to return over and over in what ever capacity that may be, even if one day my knees are too old and I can only see the mountains from my porch.

Jason Hummel

[run4cache]

Breathtaking photos and summits!  What's was the avy danger like on that trip?  I'm a bit of a wimp when it comes to risk taking - not enough to keep me off of scrambles but enough to cause me to stay away from unstable slopes and away from mountains when the danger is moderate and above.  I would love to do more "winter scrambling" but I lack confidence in this area.

[Dayhike Mike]

Nice! I've often looked at those ridgelines on Topo and wondered whether it'd make sense to run them in the summertime.

Any idea of brush / passability, or whether they were really only "doable" because of the snowpack?

Thanks again for the TR, Matt!

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"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short

[wamtngal]

Nice to see a trip report from this area...I've looked at it on the map a number of times. Breathtaking photos too!   

[Yet]

Fun to read an 8-year-old TR from you, Matt. Nice to see pics of you back in your 20s, too.