[kyle d]

Silver Star has long been an intriguing mountain to me, in no small part due to its looming presence and jagged profile from Washington Pass and Highway 20.

Silverstar

Silverstar

Silverstar

Silverstar evening

Silverstar

Silverstar from the trailhead -- getting ready to go.

Departing shot

After some last minute planning Wildernessed picked me up after I finished work and we left Wenatchee around 4 pm Thursday. We arrived at the pullout (mile marker 166) and starting hiking sometime around 7 pm. The sun was still hitting us as we made our way up to the 6400' basin, but given the late hour it was hot, but not too hot. Views expand as one heads up, and the eye is especially drawn to the the area around Washington Pass.

Head for the gap, Burgundy Col

Views begin right away

Peak?

Views along the trail below the Basin

Campsite in a larch grove

We hit the camp elevation with a little daylight left, and as soon as we did the mosquitoes descended. I had been foolish and thought because we would be at a relatively high elevation, next to no standing water, in early July that the bugs would not be that bad. Wildernessed set up camp and I went to look for water, which turned out to be quite the chore to find. I finally found some and got back to camp just before dark for a quick bite to eat and then to bed.

Campsite in a larch grove

Silver star evening

Evening alpenglow

The next morning we were up and hiking toward Burgundy col before dawn. It was one of those morning where you get to watch the progression of the sunrise as you make your way up, with the lighting patterns changing every few minutes (excuse for photo dump). This caused quite a bit of shutter delay. I developed a routine of take a few steps, swat mosquitoes, take pictures, swat mosquitoes, repeat. Despite the picture delays and a slight detour we made good time to Burgundy Col.

Waiting for the dawn

Pre-dawn Black Peak

The Liberty Bell with alpenglow on Dome Peak behind

Morning alpenglow

Black peak looking red

The sun has risen

Rugged peak alpenglow

Morning

Sunrise

Alpenglow

Tower Mountain morning

Alpenglow

Goode to Black

Glacier Peak to Dome, some light on the Liberty Bell

Morning light in the mountains

The Liberty Bell now illuminated with sun. Glacier Peak and Dome behind

Tower Mountain and friends from the col

The North Cascades from Burgundy Col

Views from the Col

Liberty Bell and Early Winter Spires. Dome behind right.

Goode to Black a little later in the morning

From the col it's a steep drop down to the Glacier.

Heading down from Burgundy col to the glacier.

A giant mosquito attacked Wildernessed threatening to carry him away. A well aimed rock knocked her unconscious and we went to work with our ice axes to end the threat. We agreed disaster was only narrowly avoided.

1 label

The mosquitoes were huge.

The snow on the glacier was variable but mostly soft. We slowly made our way around and up and then took on the final scramble to the summit. Great views all around.

Crossing the Glacier

Mountain sea

Mountains

Glacier Peak and surrondings

Glacier Peak and many more

The North Cascades

Many layers

Dome zoom

Liberty Bell and beyond

Wildernessed goes for the summit of Silverstar

Washington pass

Unending mountains

We retraced our steps and made the hot and very dry decent to the car.

Almost back to the col

North Cascades highway and Washingon Pass from Burgundy col

Lots of rock

Toward Tower

Burgundy spire?

heather

Heather

Storm cloud

Tower

Silverstar

Clouds

Morning panorama from the col

Silver star panorama

Summit pano

Panorama

Wildernessed will likely weigh in with the stats.

[wildernessed]

Location : West of Winthrop, Wa. ( Milemarker 166 ) Map : GTM – Washington Pass Guidebooks : Summit Routes, Washington’s Highest Mountains Stats : 6.5 mi, 5800’ r/t

Silver Star Mountain via Burgundy Col

Sunrise on Silver Star

North side ofSilver Star from McLeod

South side of Silver Star from Abernathy Peak

This was one of the peaks at the top of the “to do list” this year. Glad I managed one so far, but isn’t that the way it goes, you try and prioritize, only to find with schedules, illness – injury, and weather that your still doing other great trips, ones you would have done eventually anyway. Such is the diversity and opportunity of Washington State. Over the last several years we almost methodically hiked Northward through the peaks of the Sawtooth Range uncovering one big mountain, ridge, and valley after another with Silver Star coming ever so closer into focus, and feeding our desires to scramble it, especially after the Gardners, it stood there the last T100 between SR 20 and us. Beautiful from the South, and even more so with it’s glaciated northface. Finally we made it. The original plan was to try and coordinate this trip with Niko, RichP, and Kyled. We kept this trip at the top for this year, along with several others. But along came the increasingly hot weather, Kyle had a project at work and couldn’t break free until Thursday late afternoon, and Niko and Rich wanted to start Wed. at 2-3 pm. So wanting to include Kyle, and start at a more humane hour of the day, I coordinated with him an we opted to backpack in to the 6400’ bench late Thurs. and camp then get an alpine start Fri., heading out before the place went up in smoke. So sometime Thur. evening we headed down the climbers boulder-talus –scree field descending from the wide pullout at the 166 milemarker area, the temp was in the mid 70’s, sun a little lower losing several hundred feet and meandering to the N a little before crossing Early Winters Creek on a log then heading back to the S in the cool forest before beginning the seemingly long, steep ascent on the fairly good albeit dusty and loose dirt and scree trail which heads up just to the West (and far away from the water access of) Burgundy Creek. It was a grunt, but we eventually we made the bench where we were surrounded by swarms of mosquitos.

There are plenty of camping sites, but it didn’t seem to popular during our stay. I put up the tent, and Kyle went on a quest for water, which we thought he’d find close by or in Burgundy Creek, but the creek is bone dry. He was gone for quite some time, but came back from the East having followed the creek up and found some water flowing from underground. We got everything in order and hit the tent fairly quick to avoid the mosquitos, and it was getting late. We were up early and on the path by 0445, there are numerous trails going up the col, and to the left and right, we hit a dead end gully, and had to descend, and traverse over, and reascend following the sunlight that started to shine through it. When we reached the col, it was the first sunshine we encountered.

The snow going down the E side of the col was hard and icy, so we self belayed facing the snow slope kicking steps in, which really served us well on the return. Snow was variable on the snowfield, with several postholes to my waist, but the glacier was hard, so we put on crampons, but even then the full sun made it a little harder. I forgot my glacier glasses at the col, so we traded off Kyles pair and stayed in the area shaded by the ridge to our E.

Kyle along the snowfield beneath the Burgundy Col

Once at the col, we made fairly quick time over mainly class 2-3 terrain, with a couple class 4 moves. There were two high points, one to the N and one just to the S so we tagged them both just to make sure. The one to the S looked higher from both viewpoints. Great views were had, and it seemed like a lot of work for such a short distance.

Kyle on the slab ramp to the summit exit.

Kyle on the Northern of the two highpoints.

Bonanza

Liberty Bell and a lot more...

Mt. Baker

Shuksan through some haze in the distance.

Early morning on North Gardner.

South side of Silver Star through a hole in the boulders.

Silver Star summit from our rest and lunch brunch spot.

We made our way down quickly, glissaded the glacier, and climbed up our initial downclimb back up to the col, after which we made good time down, and accidentally found a tiny little run drip…drip…dripping, so we drank like drunken sailors and filled our nalgenes and walked on.

Nice glissade down. kyle is the dot at the col about ready for his freefall.

Lower part of the glacier and entry point for Silver Star Creek route.

Looking down a section of gully towards Rt. 20, the camp at 6400' can be seen to the right.

Compact snow just above the 6400' camp.

We broke camp as quickly as possible (which probably wasn’t to quick) then made the knee crunching descent, crossing the river, then maybe the hardest part climbing up the rock slide in full sun back to the highway. Silver Star packs a lot of diversity and intensity into a little mileage with a lot of gain. Great trip with Kyle, as are so many of them we get out on. Bring on Windy !

Big Snagtooth from Hwy 20

Silver Star from Hwy 20 you can see the bench at 6400' and Burgundy Creek to it's right.

Early Morning Pano

Early morning pano from Burgundy Col

Pano from summit area

Pano from summit area II

[wildernessed]

Sweet !

[TrailPair]

That is an awesome trip.....a little adventure and lots of spectacular scenery.

[the Zachster]

What Trail Pair says! That was my first Mountaineers climb after finishing the Basic course and we had a great time too. As I recall it was quite a challenge finding water at that campsite...barely a trickle coming out of the ground. Beautiful photos...thank you!

[seawallrunner]

Beautiful photos, both of you!!

[BeyondLost]

What else can I say? Just spectacular!

[twodogdad]

Glad you made it. You were in our thoughts, what with the heat picking up on Thursday: our descent from 6500 to Early Winters felt far more arduous than going up the day before, only because of the heat. How's your tan? Did you get to the base of the summit block by scrambling left (and going up that narrow chimney we did) or right? If you didn't see the chimney you must have gone right. tdd

[cartman]

Terrific photos guys! We went left like you did several yrs. ago, tdd. A bit of 4th class. Came down the right side of the summit block, easy third.

[Schmidt Altitude]

Inspiring!

[wildernessed]

[DIYSteve]

Nice work on a classic route! Great pics

[RichP]

Very nice photos, both of you. Sorry we couldn't do this trip together. Hopefully we'll team up again sometime.

[wildernessed]

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Let me reiterate since I had to delete my post on Wildy's original TR... Nice photos, and well-written writeups.