[Matt]

Date: 2/11/2017 Destination: Burley Mtn (5403 feet, 903P) via Trout Creek Road and northwest ridge Party: Matt, Yana, Dave Creeden FYI, this is the Burley Mtn 5403 located north of Townsend Mtn in Snohomish County, not the Burley Mtn 5304 lookout in Lewis County. For several years, Yana has been suggesting a winter trip to Burley, but I always balked at the long approach via Trout Creek. This winter, after months of minor peaks or repeats, I wanted to try a more challenging trip and agreed to it. We committed all day to trying it, but ended up falling short with a 16.5 hour round trip. Short version: The Trout Creek road had some blowdown and washouts, but was in surprisingly good shape. Fording the north fork Trout Creek was steep and wet. Burley's west ridge ran well up to 4800 feet. The final ridge to the summit looked great in the distance. But the narrow section in between had too many impassable steep outcrops.

Burley GPS Track

We parked at the current barricade on the Index-Galena Road, marked with a hopeful notice of pending action regarding re-routing of the road. The Trout Creek road was in better condition than we expected. It had periodic blowdowns, washouts, and wet areas, but wasn't particularly overgrown. Snow was just deep enough to provide steps over the junk on the road.

Start of the Trout Creek Road

Dave hiking on the road

Yana hiking on the road

A steep creek crossing

Yana crossing a side creek

Dave crossing a side creek

Partway up the road, one of my MSR Evo snowshoes failed. It wasn't the usual weakness where the binding attaches to the frame. This time it turned out that all the rivets holding the binding together were gone. We made a temporary repair using some frame pins held in place with bent safety pins (all donated by Yana).

= Yana's photo of my first snowshoe repair.

At the road end, we turned uphill in order to find a crossing of the north fork Trout Creek that wasn't in a steep gorge. We didn't find a log for the wide creek, so we forded it in our snowshoes, since they gave better traction of the wet rocks. It worked fine except for a few deeper steps where the snowshoes caught the current and tried to drag us downstream.

Snowshoe crossing of Trout Creek

It had taken us 4.25 hours to hike the road and cross the creek. If we could do the steeper off-road part of the trip in the same time, we'd probably be looking at a 14 hour day. So we headed uphill. There was a tedious area of large downed trees on the hilldside, but travel became better after we were on the ridge crest. The snow was about a foot of fresh snow on top of a firm older crust, so mostly packed down okay underfoot. At 3200 feet, there was a very steep section where we had to boot up in order to handle the steeper snow and get around a rock outcrop, but after that it lay back into pretty good ridge walking. South of us, views of the steep north face of Gunn Peak appeared between the trees. Along the way, my snowshoe came apart again. The safety pins had actually held together, but one of the small frame pins had pulled through the holes in the binding. This time Dave provided spare parts. He had a little spike from MSR that was designed to bolt into the base plate holes, and it screwed neatly into the empty slot, so I could continue again.

North face of Gunn Peak

The next section was uphill hiking in open forest, with the snowshoes packing a steady trail in 6-8 inches of new powder on top of a firm crust. The long crest of Townsend came into view into view running parallel to us.

Hiking up the ridge

Townsend comes into view

We crossed a flatter area after the closed contour around 4150 feet and then the ridge pitched more steeply uphill to Point 4780. Here we came out onto a narrow crest with our first open views of the area. The north side of the Merchant-Gunn range looked great. Out ahead we could see the final ridge of Burley curving smoothly up to the summit. It was already 3pm, but I was hopeful we could make the summit in another hour or so, for maybe a 16 hour day overall.

Narrow crest at 4780 feet, looking ahead to Burley's summit, with Townsend on the right

The tip of Baring, Merchant Peak, and Wing

Wing, Tailgunner, Gunn & Gunnshy, all showing their steep northeast faces

But we couldn't get to that easy final ridge. The narrow crest just ahead of us masked a rocky outcrop. With much effort, we plunged down the snow and around the northeast side, but then there were more and more outcrops. After an hour of steep sidehill wallowing, we could see an even steeper slope ahead, and it was obvious that we were out of time. Going back, we bypassed the highest outcrops on the southwest side, which was a bit less steep, and had much better packable snow on the southern exposure, compared to the dry powder on the north side.

Examples of the impassable rock outcrops

We hiked back down to the easier part of the ridge, where we paused for a late meal, topped off with the taste of failure for dessert. Yana had brought a stove and made coffee, which she drank directly from the stove while hiking.

Hiking back down Burley's northwest ridge

View of Jumpoff Ridge

View of Spire Mountain

Yana hiking with her coffee stove

A bit of evening color began to glow on some of the summits, but I missed most of it because I was busy repairing my snowshoe again. Midway down the ridge, my snowshoe came apart again. This time the pins were completely gone. But heck, if we couldn't fix it, it would only be 6 miles and a few thousand vertical feet of postholing in the dark. Actually I was able to make a more successful repair. I wrapped a Velcro strap around one side of the binding, and Yana sacrificed her Spot strap to tie the other side.

Evening light on Townsend

Final snowshoe repair of the day

We finished descending as the last light glowed on one side and then the stars came out on the other side.

Alpenglow on Spire Benchmark

Stars appearing above Gunn Peak

The water splashed in our headlamp beams as we crossed Trout Creek. The night actually became brighter as we hiked the road, with a full moon shining overhead.

Night crossing of Trout Creek

Moonlight on Merchant & Gunn, or Gunn & Gunnshy, I'm not sure

My repaired snowshoes made it to the end of the road, arriving at 11:15pm. Trip stats: 16.6 miles, 4740 cumulative gain, 16:20 hours It was a long day, but darn it, after the last couple months of settling for small goals in bad weather, it felt good to put an all-out effort into trying for something more challenging, even if we didn't make it. Route Notes The bad part of this route probably wouldn't work in most any conditions. The ridge is too narrow and steep through that section of outcrops. Yana's friend Josh reports that he has visited Sunset Lake by contouring in after the 4160-foot closed contour. From there, you could probably work around to the east end of the lake, then angle south to gain the Burley's upper west ridge to the summit. It might also be possible to contour south of the ridge around 4000 feet toward Lake Symms and then angle up to the summit, but I don't know anything about that side. Snowshoe Repair Note MSR's shop south of downtown replaced all the rivets in my snowshoes for free, and gave me a package of spare pins and bolts in case of future damage. They're good about that - no fuss or waiting, just an immediate repair done right there.

[RichP]

You guys sure got your exercise for the day. They don't call it Burley for nothin.'

[Redwic]

Nice effort. If you ever decide to go back via Eagle Lake/Townsend, I might be inclined to join you.

[Distel32]

[Brushbuffalo]

Fine effort, you three. I agree about service from MSR. They are tops for an equipment issue, as is OR. Some people say that good gear doesn't need a bombproof warranty. To them I would say they need to get out and work it more intensively ...maybe cross a few creeks with snowshoes on, etc. ☺

[Justus S.]

Nice Effort! Years back my brother and I did a winter scouting hike and made it to the flat /marsh at 3500ft below the lake. Been wanting to go back and make a serious attempt at getting to the Lake and Burley ever since. Glad to hear the road hike is still reasonable.

[zephyr]

[Michael Lewis]

[puzzlr]

Wow! A huge effort. Too bad you weren't rewarded with the summit. I really enjoyed reading this report and following along on the map.

[mbravenboer]

Great report! I love stubborn borderline stupid trips! . It does look like going via Sunset lake would perhaps work better yeah.

[Backpacker Joe]

Nice effort guys. Is that road passable in the summer time? I was wondering whether it would be a good jump off for a Sunset lake trip? Thanks.

[Stefan]

Ditto with the effort. I am impressed.

[Nancyann]

Backpacker Joe, the road is passable in the summer until you get a couple of miles up, then a major brush fest after that. This is probably the least worst time to go up as far as Matt and friends did. Great trip report, Matt. Beautiful area that very few people see.

[Steve Erickson]

I have hiked that road twice on my way into Sunset Lake but it was many years ago. Once off the road and over the creek, we side hilled most of the way toward the outlet from Sunset Lake. Prior to reaching the lake, you will pass by the old man made dam that was built to regulate the water in the lake and use for the mining operation below. Other than a long trip through a lot of brushy areas, did not run into any difficult areas that required any technical knowledge. The last time I hiked up to Burley Mountain was from the road off of Jacks Pass that was returned to "nature" several years ago. I believe if you wanted to get to Burley, this would be a much shorter route that what you chose. Otherwise your shortest option would be off of the trail that leads up Paradise Meadows, skirting Eagle Lake, and up and over Townsend.

[Yana]