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ragman and rodman
Member
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1219 | TRs | Pics
Location: http://rgervin.com/ |
Big Steve started a recent thread on the "Trail Talk" forum about accessibility in the Teanaway... and one of the respondents said that the road was snow-free to the Johnson/Medra Trailhead (a 4.3 mile drive up the N. Fork Road). Armed with this ammo I took a look at the map and noticed that if a person could drive another mile or so up the road, they could park on the side of the road and take a fairly direct route to the Iron Peak summit... crossing over points 4203 and 5029 along the way.
I had done the SSE Ridge route (referred to by me and others on this forum as the South Ridge) in 2009 starting from the Beverly Campground... however, the route we took a couple of days ago was definitely much more direct than using the SSE ridge route.
The two ridges merge at ~6360 feet... leaving a quarter mile or so to reach the summit (6510').
We did use the SSE Ridge for our return trip... connecting with the N. Fork Road near Beverly Campground... leaving what would have been a 1.5 mile road walk back to the car. I say "would have been" because three young guys (they had just skied the Cascadian Couloir on Mt. Stuart) gave us a ride from the Johnson/Medra trailhead to our car.
An 8.7 mile loop trip, gaining 3675 feet of elevation... 7.7 miles if you are lucky enough to get a ride back to the car... 
Snowdog led all day and did use her snowshoes for a short distance... we did use our axes near the top... carried spikes, but did not need them.
As usual, there is large cornice activity on the east side of Iron Peak.
At the end of the day we decided to see how far we could drive up the road. I have a Subaru with 8.5 inches of ground clearance... the road was snow-free to 6 miles... then patchy snow to 7 miles where we chose to stop... this would have put us within 1.5 miles of the Iron Peak Trailhead.
Photos, trailhead directions and downloadable GPS track of our trip to Iron Peak.
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Slide Alder Slayer
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Joined: 14 Jan 2002
Posts: 1960 | TRs | Pics
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Great trip report and pictures!
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LeafEater
Member
Joined: 08 Jan 2014
Posts: 31 | TRs | Pics
Location: South Seattle |
Did you happen to go up the FS road along Stafford Creek? I'm wondering if the Miller-Bear trailhead is snow free. I want to climb freedom peak sometime in the next couple weeks from there.
thanks!
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
Joined: 13 Feb 2007
Posts: 7220 | TRs | Pics
Location: Stuck in the middle |
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
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 Thu May 11, 2017 1:42 pm |
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Looks like the kind of spring day in the Teanaway that we all dream about during the winter. You sure found the long way to Iron, but I get it. Improvised loop trips in the Teanaway are great.
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 12655 | TRs | Pics
Location: here now |
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
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Thu May 11, 2017 2:15 pm |
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Love that S ridge walk. There was an old hunting camp at est. 5550', 1km SSE of Iron Peak summit at the bottom of a big S facing basin. A few years ago a microburst blew down 100+ big Subalpine Firs and Whitebark Pines, wiping out the camp. I didn't recognize the place when I was there after the blowdown. (And glad I wasn't there when that microburst happened.) Most of the blowdown may have been covered by snow on your trip. It was a very cool camp with a spring nearby, about 100m SW of camp. We had kept the location of that camp a sekrit, but it doesn't matter now because it got wiped out.
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ragman and rodman
Member
Joined: 28 Apr 2005
Posts: 1219 | TRs | Pics
Location: http://rgervin.com/ |
| LeafEater wrote: | | Did you happen to go up the FS road along Stafford Creek? I'm wondering if the Miller-Bear trailhead is snow free. |
We did not drive up the Stafford Creek Road... that being said, I would be shocked if there was any snow on that road.
Every year is different... but on May 17, 2012 we did Freedom Peak... hiking a snow-free trail to where we headed cross-country at ~3800 feet.
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| puzzlr wrote: | | You sure found the long way to Iron, but I get it. |
Our south ridge route to the summit was only 3 miles, gaining 3300 feet of elevation... if we had simply gone back down the ascent route, it would have been a much easier day... that SSE ridge can be kind of draining... in 2009 I went up it... and this year down it... and I think that will be my last time on it.
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| DIYSteve wrote: | | There was an old hunting camp at est. 5550', 1km SSE of Iron Peak summit at the bottom of a big S facing basin. |
We didn't see the camp you refer to... however, at ~5000 feet on our route to the summit, we did see a hunter's cache... kind of looked like a pup tent... definitely a hunter's path on both the south and SSE ridges.
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
Joined: 06 Mar 2007
Posts: 12655 | TRs | Pics
Location: here now |
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DIYSteve
seeking hygge
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Fri May 12, 2017 9:26 am |
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| ragman and rodman wrote: | | definitely a hunter's path on both the south and SSE ridges. |
Those are primarily deer trails I think. There's deer scat every few feet, it seems. The only boot tracks I've seen there during hunting season were our own.
Also, there's evidence of a small forest fire and fire crew activity a bit S of 5005.
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