[kitya]

By now, I think, over the years I climbed most of the well-known Teanaway peaks (Jocker, Penguin, Jester, Riddler, Iron Bear, Navaho, Tarzan, Teanaway, Earl, Bills, Iron, Jolly, Ingalls, Fortune, Bean, Hawkins, Esmeralda, Yellow Hill, Elbow, Hex, probably more, it is hard to remember all the peaks!), so now it was time to scramble (pun intended) for some of the less obvious. On Saturday me and Cookie drove the NF-9703 forest road to its end and parked at the Miller/Iron Bear trailhead at a leisure late morning (8:30). The road has many smaller potholes, but is overall in one of the best conditions I’ve ever seen it (or any forest road), helped by the really dry May. Miller Peak trail is also in great shape. There are a few creek crossings (nothing major, but feet can get wet) and a few downed trees and several very small patches of snow, but overall it is nice, smooth, no nonsense trail that quickly (but not too quickly) switchbacks to the summit of Miller Peak. I guess by now Miller peak season is over and we met no people on the trail. Miller Peak is not very high and doesn’t have much of a view, except to the eastern foothills of Wenatchee mountains and Mount Rainier.

On a sunny day Teanaway open country can be a miserably hot place to be, but it can also be really windy and we had strong cold winds all day, making it much nicer to be outside. From Miller summit we took off trail and followed the obvious bumpy ridge (also the border between Kittitas and Chelan counties) to another minor summit Freedom peak. There supposedly is (or was) a county line trail following the ridge, but we found no evidence of it. Regardless, it is mostly easy going, with sometimes patches of down trees, loose rock, a bit of snow and some rocky gendarmes to cross. Freedom peak is also sometimes known as Little Navaho (see: https://www.summitpost.org/mountain/623906) and the best part of it is how pointy this little summit is. Unfortunately, rock is very loose and at this time there is already not enough snow to make a snowy ascent. It took a bit of time to find a way to scramble to the top, but nothing too bad. After Freedom Peak we continued on the same county line ridge, dropping down to a col between Freedom and Navaho. One can perhaps traverse right from the col to the Three Brothers ridge, but traversing loose rock and some waterfalls looked sketchy and we climbed way up on Navaho ridge, before dropping down to the basin between Navaho and Three Brothers. This basin is still mostly snow covered and supports a family of ground squirrels.

From the basin it was again a quite tedious way up to Three Brothers west summit through more loose rock, some veggie belays and almost completely no snow. Three Brothers is a curious mountain (see: https://www.summitpost.org/three-brothers/509019). It is actually third highest mountain in Teanaway range and first most prominent (1743 feet of prominence!). It is also the most remote of Teanaway area and thus quite rarely climbed. Even more annoyingly it not really one mountain, but three different quite isolated peaks. I was originally thinking about making it through all three (or two), which is possible, but adds quite a bit of time and effort. It is a true wilderness experience up there, but not much of a payoff, the views from Three Brothers are about the same or worse as from other closer peaks. Unless you are a botanist. Anyway, since I’m lazy, for now I went just a little bit past West Summit (passing the highest point of the mountain, so that technically I can say we were on it) and turned back to the Navaho-Three Brothers basin. From that basin I climbed another steep snowy ridge to Navaho peak. We have been to both Navaho peak and Earl peak with Cookie in years before, so Navaho was not really that interesting to climb again (I usually try not to go to the same peak twice) but making it a loop is always more interesting that coming back the same way. Also helps keep dog entertained, otherwise she starts protesting and stalling once we come close to the car, if we take the same way down. As one might expect we met first people of the day on Navaho peak and it was a zoo. Literally dozens of people, this time of year Navaho is a new mount Si. However by the time we got there it was already getting into afternoon and all these people camped around Navaho or in the Earl peak basin. We quickly passed them and the took now empty Stafford creek trail (best condition trail ever) down to the road. Great advantage of Stafford creek trail is also its gentle grade, which can be boring on the way up, but nice relief on the way down. There were many mosquitoes at the lower end of the trail due to proximity to water, so we participated somewhat involuntarily in a blood drive for them. From the end of the trail it was a mile road walk to the car, making it a 22 miles round trip, with about 7450 feet gain over 4 Teanaway peaks – longish, but not tiresome day of dog walking. TL/DR: Forest road to Miller trailhead is in good condition, connecting Miller to Navaho via Freedom makes for a nice easy straightforward ridge walk/scramble, Three Brothers is a good side trip (for no reason, the views from Three Brothers west are not really better), but visiting each of Three Brothers will require several more hours. Little snow, but balsamroot, calypso orchids, paintbrushes and other flowers are abundant. https://connect.garmin.com/modern/activity/2731202362

[RichP]

[kitya]

[Walkinaround]

[kitya]

[Walkinaround]

[JimK]

Adding to the coincidence, we were the three guys irierootsnw and his friend saw on the Navaho ridge above the saddle and again on the way down.

[Walkinaround]

[JimK]

You were talking to John who goes by Slood on this site. I was one of the others, the guy with the bright green backpack.

[Joey]

[raising3hikers]

nice job connecting all those peaks on the loop

[kitya]

[Joey]

[slood]

[kitya]