Joined: 04 Jun 2004 Posts: 2377 | TRs | Pics Location: Out Hating
Sat Mar 24, 2007 11:30 am
ree - LOL! Thanks for the encouragement haiku.
ActionBetty - Oh, there's pain all right. I might just keel over and die if I can't take photos anymore.
jimmymac - I was originally planning on writing an actual trip report, but my TRs are generally written around photographs, so I just couldn't bring myself to do it last night. Oh well, I'll give it a shot today. Camera still doesn't work, so sadly no photos. I've tried to make up for it by excessive use of maps and other people's pictures.
The weather forecast for Friday was pretty miserable, but I really wanted to get out. I chose Beckler Peak near Skykomish because it was a close drive, and I knew I'd be able to get to the trailhead.
I was pleasantly surpised with a stunning dawn and sunrise on the drive to the trailhead. I finally managed to find a spot to pull over near Index and take some photos. I think they turned out pretty well, but the world may never know. :-(
The obvious approach to the summit this time of year is up Beckler Peak Road and then up the west ridge. Here's a photo I shamelessly stole from someone else. Taken from the air. Beckler Peak is on the right, west ridge is the left "skyline":
(Stolen from http://www.cmsstudios.com/fly2k/99flights/91199.htm)
The Beckler Peak Road is closed to vehicles at this time due to washouts and snow, according to the Mt. Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest website.
Perusing the map the night before my trip, I decided that I could skip at least two miles of boring, undulating road walk (each way) by shortcutting from the Beckler river road, like this:
I'm not sure why I thought this was a good idea, but it made sense at the time. I found the little spur road, which was gated. I walked up it, and of course it bore no resemblance to what was on the map, weaving and winding its way through some sort of quarry thing. When the road turned downhill, I had had enough and decided to make my move. I stopped and rummaged around my 10-essentials bag for my compass so I could take a bearing toward the road as the stream gully I had planned to follow wasn't apparent at this point. After a minute of fruitless searching, I realized I had taken my compass out at home for some navigational practice and had forgotten to put it back. Oops!
At this point, I should have turned around, walked back to my car (less than 10 minutes), driven to the origin of the Beckler Peak Road, and just gone from there... but no.... I was here, I was going to make it work!
Amazingly enough, though my route was slightly different than what I originally intended, I got to the Beckler Peak Road just uphill of the two mile marker with no meandering and only minor brush bashing. But the whole thing had taken 45 minutes. Not so much of a shortcut. I had gained a whopping 300 feet of elevation, leaving me only 3800!
I kept a pretty good pace going up the gently-rising road. There were recent tire tracks, and many of the major blowdowns accross the road have been cleared already. The snow started around 2600 feet at a switchback.
I paused briefly at the point (around 2700 feet) where the Beckler Peak road crosses the west ridge of Beckler Peak for the last time. My intended route was the west ridge, but I had two choices: go up directly from here, or continue on the road and take some spur roads to about 3800 on the ridge. The ridge at this point was still snow-free (snow was only on the road), so I elected for the less direct route of following roads in order to avoid brush and such.
Shortly after, I finally gave in and donned snowshoes to avoid the postholing. The spur takes off only about half a mile past the ridge crossing. Though it is in disuse, it was fairly easy to follow until about 3500 ft, where it becomes pretty indistinct (at least covered in snow). I think I managed to stay on it all the way to the ridge at 3800 ft.
After a quick break, I headed up the ridge, which is pretty steep at this point. Almost immediately, views open up due to the open nature of the forest. Though the weather clearly spelled "impending doom," the cloud ceiling was still pretty high, and I got dramatic views of Baring and Co., as well as the mountains to the south. I stopped frequently to take photos, knowing that the view was unlikely to last.
Between 3900 and 4400 feet, the ridge is cliffy at times, and I traversed around to the right (south) side. I removed my snowshoes for this portion as it involved some mild scrambling on wet rock and an interesting veggie belay. I expected postholing difficulties without the snowshoes, but found none on this section. There were actually a couple of places where I had to work really hard to kick steps in the incredibly compacted snow.
After this section, the angle of the ridge mellows considerably and the forest becomes less open. I put the snowshoes back on as postholing fun resumed here. There was a flat section that felt like it went on forever (but was only a couple hundred yards long).
At some point, it must have started precipitating. I don't know exactly when, because I was being bombarded by half-frozen crap coming from the trees. Consequently, I did not immediately notice the half-frozen crap coming from the clouds until later. At any rate, this just added to the "drowned rat" state I seemed to be adopting.
After one final steep-ish push, I reached a flat, open area that I think was the site of the old lookout. I am puzzled by why the lookout went here and not on the obvious high point only 95 vertical feet away (an easy, short walk with no difficulties whatsoever).
The summit area of Beckler Peak is actually roughly a half-mile long ridge with about 4 distinct points. I stopped at the western-most one. I believe the true high point is the eastern-most peak, though it's hard to tell even on the topo. At any rate, there isn't a dramatically obvious height difference between any of them:
Beckey claims the ascent is non-technical, but it looked a little too exciting in the current conditions (one of the peaks had a rather impressive cornice, among other things). Here's a picture of the eastern part of the ridge (taken from the other direction) that I shamelessly stole from someone:
I didn't linger on the summit as I was cold and wet. I did enjoy views that consisted of more than the inside of a cloud, and for that I am thankful. The descent was mostly uneventful and quick. I had to downclimb a couple of short, steep sections. Other than that, there was the occasional falling over due to incredibly mushy snow on steep slopes, and that's about it. My ice axe came in handy here, as it prevented me from going too far and hitting trees and other obstacles.
By the time I reached my "shortcut" turnoff from the road, it had been pouring consistently for some time. Not having a compass, I missed by several hundred yards south on the return and hit the Beckler River, which I followed to the road and back to my car.
Trip Stats
Miles RT: 11
Elevation gain: 4100 ft
Time up: 4hr 45min
Time down: 2hr 45min
Brush: not bad but very, very wet... only got thwacked in the face twice
Snow conditions: compact and icy to loose wet crap (much more of the latter than the former)
Animal Tracks Seen: bobcat, cougar, deer, rabbit, and some weird bird tracks
Number of People Encountered: 0
Gear used: Snowshoes, ice axe, camera (waaaaaah!)
Route map:
-------------- PLAY SAFE! SKI ONLY IN CLOCKWISE DIRECTION! LET'S ALL HAVE FUN TOGETHER!
Joined: 14 Nov 2003 Posts: 3455 | TRs | Pics Location: Directly beneath the snow-filled hillbilly hat
Sat Mar 24, 2007 5:49 pm
Quote:
...I was being bombarded by half-frozen crap coming from the trees. Consequently, I did not immediately notice the half-frozen crap coming from the clouds...
Classic.
-------------- Sometimes I think I glimpse eternity.
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