[Matt]

Date: November 25, 2012 Destination: Point 5249 "Niederprum Peak" 5249 feet, 409P (USGS Whitehorse) Party: Matt, Dicey, Gabriel D Niederprum is the unnamed high point on Whitehorse Ridge. It was the 600th distinct peak that I have summited. To get there, we took the Niederprum Trail to Lone Tree Pass, then followed the ridge northwest to Point 5249.

My 600th summit

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Niederprum GPS Track

Niederprum Trail sign, not maintained for livestock, also not maintained for people any more

We started by headlamps in darkness and mist at 6:41am. Actually, the spot we parked at the washed-out bridge was the darkest and foggiest spot of the day. As we hiked the 1.4 miles up the closed road, it lightened rapidly. Circa 2200 feet we had to put on snowshoes. Circa 2400 the trail became very vague where it turned uphill at the edge of an avalanche slope. Some sections were marked by flagging that wasn't just colored tape, but actual tiny little orange flags.

Trail flag

Higher up, near the base of the cliffs, we had views of the cloud-filled valley below.

Cloud-filled Stillaguamish & Sauk valleys.

On the open slopes below Lone Tree Pass

Clouds breaking and lifting under the sun's impact

At Lone Tree Pass, we switched to crampons, because the snow was shallow and sometimes icy on the north side of the ridge. We traveled west to the true low point of the pass, then had to drop about 150 feet on the north side to bypass a cliffy high point. After that, it was easy travel on the crest to the summit, which happily turned out to have a small snowy knoll above the trees.

Dicey arrives at the summit with a smile

Gabriel approaching the summit

Me on the summit

I celebrated with my usual tea and soup. Lindsay sent along cookies to celebrate. I set up candles to spell 600. (The store was out of "0" candles, so I had to cut the tails off of two "9" candles so that they would look like small zeroes.)

Summit Tea

600

Whitehorse sternly turned its north face away from the sun, while Three Fingers danced in and out of the clouds. Farther out, the Ptarmigan Traverse and the Picket Range were surprisingly clear.

Three Fingers

Glacier Peak

Blum & Picket Range

Shadow of Whitehorse Ridge

Down below, the shadow of our ridge crept northward toward the highway, and it was time to depart. We made it back to the car at 5:00pm, just barely before needing the headlamps. Stats: 9 miles, 5000 cumulative gain, 10:30 hours

[Pikawhisperer]

Nice trip! Cognrats on 600 peaks! Awesome! Love the pics!

[puzzlr]

600 is a LOT! Congrats. I've looked over at that peak on all three attempts on Whitehorse (one successful). I like that trail up to Lone Pine, so I'll have to go bag it some time.

[kite]

Allays enjoy reading your trip reports and checking out the tea shot. Congratulations on 600, that is a lot UP,

[BarbE]

[contour5]

Nice one. Congrats on the 600 mark.

[Hiker Mama]

Nice job, Matt! That's a lot of peaks! I always love your reports and photos.

[Gimpilator]

[Scrooge]

2014 calendar. Matt, you must somewhere have a map that shows them all. Any chance of sharing it? (I realize some may be outside Washington/the Northwest.)

[LadyÆsa]

Congrats on 600!! That in itself is amazing. looks like you had a beautiful day to celebrate!

[Rosie]

Congrats!!

[EastKing]

Congrats Matt! That peak also looks very good. I might take a stab at it in the near future!

[Stefan]

I miss the sunshine!

[cascadetraverser]

Geeze you get out to too many awesome places, Matt! Cool report and way to get out and have a great day this time of year....