[Bryan K]

Gimpilator came up with the idea to hike to these seldom visited peaks out of the Staircase TH. We arrived at the TH and hit the trail by 7:50am

Yup, it really was steep!

Ascending to Wagonwheel Lake was very steep and unrelenting. The air was very thick with moisture and the cloud cover didn't help that dissipate. We reached the lake around 9:30 I think and we opted to go for Copper Mt first. We found a boot path going to the east side of the lake and we followed that until it ran out, which wasn't too far. From there, the southeastern side of the lake, we were off trail and navigating through brush fields and trying to avoid Devils Club and Slide Alder.

Slope of junk

Glacier Lilly

Around 4600' the growth cleared up and we made our way through a partially snow covered boulder field. We'd get peek a boo views of Copper teasing us as it awaited our ascent.

Picking our wy through this stuff

Easy traveling

Ascnding to a saddle

Finally atop a saddle we got a great view of Copper and her ridge to the east. We decided to start from the west flank to ascend Copper as we had considered following the Copper ridge to the eastern highpoint as well. The snow was just soft enough to kick in nice steps, but we had crapons with just in case they were needed.

Copper on the right and Copper East on the left

Further up

Gimp lead the way as we had our axes at the ready in the event of a slip and slide down the slope. Finally we made the ridge and the views opened up nicely, though I didn't get many photos of the views.....

Climber on rock

Of course we both had ideas on which side of the ridge to traverse as well as sometimes going right along the top.

There were some notches to work through

Ascending through a notch

We reached the summit as light raindrops started to meet the dry earth. A guidebook that he had showed the eastern edge of the ridge to be the highpoint oven though our newer maps had elevations that contradicted that information. We used my GPS (5416') as well as the Theodolite app on my phone to get the angle from the west peak to the east. We both used the app and found the eastern peak to be -2.0 degrees lower. Wanting to make sure, we decided to head over and do the same from there.

Heading to Copper East

Cruddy rock to traverse

We came down from the middle

The rock was typical Olympic crap. One wrong move and you'd slide down and possibly resemble some hamburger. We reached the end and it offered more space to lay around and relax. My GPS showed 5410' and Theodolite showed the west to be -.3 degrees lower. We took that as the earth curvature. I didn't get photos as I was busy stuffing my face, though I believe Gimp got photos up there. We weighed our descent options and I volunteered to scout out a route to our east. The scrub trees offered great holds as I traversed my way along. About 150 yards later I was on much more solid ground and the rest of the route looked great from there. Gimp started the traverse and soon he was holding something in the air and said "Is this yours?" I asked what it was. It was something defense or whatever. I told him it wasn't. When he caught up to me he said it was bear spray and it looked as though it may have been a year or 2 old. I offered to spray him with it to see if it still worked, sadly for me, he declined..... fun killer!!!! We continued down into the basin and reconnected with our tracks and headed back to the lake. At the lake we went around the west side and followed a great boot path up to Cub Peak Ridge. There were some grassy areas which beckoned to Gimpilater to sit down and enjoy it's soft suppleness.

Slacker

Copper across the way

Grassy slop

From Copper, the last section of ridge up here looked sketchy and we anticipated what it would look like when we got to it. We'd heard of some exposed Class 3 portions and knowing Olympic rock we figured it'd be razor sharp stuff. We traversed the ridge top a bit but that was very slow going and we opted to stay below on the south side. The worst looking part from across the basin was finally in front of us. Chossy crap like usual. We were hesitant to try and cross it thinking it may be lose crud on top of slabs. I opted to head straight up as Gimp continued to traverse. We met up on the top of the ridge and I told him I didn't want to traverse my section again. Funny enough, he said the same about his section... well this might make for an interesting descent...... A few more feet and we were on the summit!

Cub Peak summit

We stayed for only a short bit and started our way back.

Heading down

Cruddy ridge rock

Gimp lead as we went down to where he traversed the chossy junk. We decided to go a bit lower than where he crossed and it turned out to be nice and soft! It's amazing how much different terrain can be just 30' lower sometimes. Back in the grass we changed from our sweat soaked socks into dry ones. Gimp also put his trail shoes back on and put his boots in his pack...smart guy.

Looking back up to Cub

Back down to the lake for a quick last view then down the 3200' over 2.9 miles. Saying my legs were sore halfway down would be an understatement! My quads were killing me by the time this steeper than Mailbox trail came to an end. I'll say that the nice thing about being a peakbagger, is that I don't have to do that darn trail ever again :-) We had a great time and it was really nice to scramble up some rarely visited peaks.

[Gimpilator]

Thanks Bryan for scouting parts of the route. It was a super fun day!

Pershing

near the summit

east peak

Skokomish and Stone

west peak

Washington and Ellinor

Stone

Skokomish

Cruiser

Lincoln

Washington

Rose and Lake Cushman

Copper

going to Cub

Cub Summit

Copper

[meck]

Great Pics and thanks for posting the route description! That ones been on my hit list for a few years now.

[ranger rock]

That sounds like a fun trip. I've been to the notch at the top of Copper but never up Copper and I've been up to the meadow on Cub peak but I would never think to try both in one day! Wagon wheel is such an ugly trail until you break out of the woods, too much effort if you just stop at the lake. According to my last GPS track log it's even steeper than the park sign indicates. Thanks for sharing!

[puzzlr]

Great day. Thanks for the report and photos.

[RodF]

Thanks for sharing your hard-earned views!