[b00]

dewey+seymour 7-27-2014

this trip had a lot of question marks - questions about the approach, questions about how to ascend the summit block. after reading how some folks had encountered brush, it just made sense to me that if you stayed high, that would not be an issue. after looking carefully at the map, it seemed obvious to me that if we left the trail at the county line, it would be the shortest and least brushy route. no one wrote about going that way, would there be some 39' cliffs? short answer: no, after doing it, i would not go any other way - all easy terrain and no brush. when we reached the dewey/seymour saddle(this place is elk central, tons of signs of elk), since the trip had been so easy, i wondered if the summit block would hard. we looked over at dewey peak and some folks mentioned a direct route from the saddle to peak. i had read reports of people following the ridge. the ridge did not look like a slam dunk, but the direct route did not look great, so i boogied ahead a little bit and headed up to the ridge, found a game trail and talked the others into following. the ridge worked perfectly, although the direct route may have worked as well, who knows? we got to the base of the peak and both modern and i immediately saw the ledge route.

looking back at the rib from the ledge

it was really obvious to us. but before we decided on using the ledge route, we looked over the other routes and they all looked much more difficult(low 5th class at least). the gully between us and ledge looked a little steep and loose, but once modern and i checked it out, we realized its steepness was an optical illusion - it was easy class 2. the ledge too looked easy, but it had a little break in it.

the ledge and x on the corner

the break/split in the ledge was the crux. it was about eight feet and exposed. the climbing through the break was easy class 4, but the rock was really questionable. i've scrambled many areas like this, but it is a little like russian roulette, if any of those not solid looking holds blows, it is all over. the other problem was, you could not test the holds, since testing them could cause the rock to fall on you. therefore we brought out the ropes. a foot from the break/split in the ledge, modern found a waist high crack that was a bomber #1 cam placement. john wanted to do the lead, so he tied in and i belayed him. about 10 meters on, he placed a green alien. about 25 meters along the ledge, he came to a pile of broken rock and used his cordelette to build a reasonable anchor.

the ledge and x on the corner

good lead! we fixed the rope on both ends and then, first modern, followed by everyone but me, clipped a biner to the fixed line and moved to the next anchor. once modern was at the belay at the corner, he teased out a really easy way to the summit - continue traversing, first dropping ten feet and then easy(one high step off the deck, which took some effort for modern and i because of flexibility issues, of which the others did not have any problem with)

high step after east side traverse, heading up to summit

class three scrambling up to the summit. john then belayed me to the anchor and we all met on the summit.

dewey summit above

the summit was roomy. it easily absorbed our party of eight and we all probably could have brought our twins if we all had them. there was a summit register tube that was leaking and the contents were soaked. a new summit register and tube would be nice. right at the summit was an existing rap anchor. i had read about others using this as a belay anchor too. it was a nice sized rock, maybe 4'x4'x4', but it was detached from everything. as a rap anchor, if you did not bounce, it looked like it would hold. as a belay anchor? no comment. the slings on the anchor looked old, so we backed them up with our slings(a single and one or two doubles). we threaded our two ropes through the rings and tossed them. although we could not tell when we looked down from the summit(it is always disconcerting when you cannot see if your rope(s) reach the bottom :<( ), the double rope rap(two 30m ropes) reached with at least 10' on each end to spare. we took a nice stroll over to seymour.

scrambling to seymour

modern took a crazy south gully up, the rest of us did seymour's easy class 2 east ridge. i was pretty proud of how well our group did time wise. two of our group, this was their first "climb." it was also one of john's first rope lead. it took a previous party(a climbing club), 10.5 hours to do just dewey. without rushing, not including our side trip to seymour, we did this 3 hours faster. that makes me happy. a fun group to do a trip with too. the bugs were not in full prime time mode, but we did break out bug juice. we found water along the trail, on the traverse from the trail along the county line and just below the seymour/dewey saddle. quick and dirty route info: leave chinook pass south on pct to yakima/perce county line, south to dewey/seymour saddle. follow ridge to easter island type rock/statue just before dewey summit block, traverse on right(south) side of ridge to next rib. at about same level, look for ledge running across south side of summit block(the ledge has a 8' break/split in the middle). take ledge to corner and continue traversing around to east side and ascend to summit.

returning from rib to easter island type rock/statue

9.52mi 2893' gain 2:29 car to base of dewey summit block (car to dewey seymour saddle 1:45) 2:38 climb and rap dewey 0:59 base of dewey summit block to seymour peak (extra time for side trip from dewey/seymour saddle, to and back from seymour, not including summit stay, 1:04) 0:19 summit stay 2:11 seymour peak to car 8:35 car to car equipment: placed #1 cam and a green alien, two 30m ropes, harness, helmet, rap device equipment brought but not used: crampons, ice axe

[evergreen199]

This was a fun trip - great weather and better company! Here are some more photos.

First view of Dewey (left) and Seymore (right)

Looking up at Dewey's summit from the saddle between the two peaks

View from the walk up the ridge of Dewey

The ramp and placement of the #1 cam

summit

Dewey Lake below

The rappel

Loose, steep dropoff stretch near the base of the summit block

I haven't had time to look this up yet but thought it was beautiful

[raising3hikers]

awesome! thanks for sharing your trip. i will have to do those sometime. it was a great weekend to be hiking near chinook pass

[b00]

[Magellan]

Looks super fun!

[iron]

looks like you're dew-ing better than last week...

[NacMacFeegle]

Sounds like a fun trip! I was up in that area a week ago and the weather wasn't nearly so nice, clouds and fog with only occasional breaks (great day for exploring the woods around Dewey though!). It's been a long time since I was up on Seymour, what a great area for cross-country exploration!