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Stefan Member
Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Posts: 5084 | TRs | Pics
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Stefan
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Mon Jun 18, 2018 3:33 pm
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Started the day at the Dosewallips Road End. 8:30am
Matt B., Carla S., and Adam W. all were present on this fine day. We headed off on our bikes up to Constance Lake trailhead. We locked the bikes at the trailhead and walked up the steepest trail in Washington State. Trail is getting worse in the lower first thousand feet of burned area due to non trail maintenance. More logs to cross over. Second thousand feet in the woods is the prettiest and has quite a bit of logs down too for this section. The last 1000 feet is normal steep trail interspersed with some minor class 3 sections. Lake was beautiful. We went up the valley and put our overnight gear down at 5840+ below The Thumb. Water nearby coming off of The Thumb and will go for a long time of snow melt. Nice!
Here we go up the wide snow filled slope NE of the Thumb. Plodding along. After reaching the basin below The Thumb we went obliquely right up a steeper couloir that looks like it ends high up at a notch. Do not go all the way to the notch of this steeper couloir—go only about halfway as the guidebook instructs. At the halfway point you will come to a narrow gully/chute facing north and starting at 6900 feet. Go up the narrow gully/chute. The guidebook says it is a defile. What is a defile? Yes, it is narrow and steeper than the previous couloir you were just in. Get it? It gets steeper, at each section. When you enter the 6900 foot narrow gully/chute you will see the summit of Inner Constance. Eventually you will be going to climbers right of the summit or NE ridgeline.
After you are through the 6900 foot narrow/chute we entered into a steep downsloping snowfield. The guidebook says basin, and I disagree in calling it a basin. It is a snowfield that downslopes. We crossed the upper part of this snowfield, and at this time Adam said he was turning around. Carla, Matt and I continued on. After crossing this downsloping snowfield we went up the first and wrong gully. Why did we go up the wrong gully? We were following our GPS. The map is incorrect in marking the true summit of Inner Constance. The map marks the SW closed contour as 7667T as the highest. The summit is actually the NE closed contour just barely north of the marked SW closed contour. So we came back down the first gully and then headed up the second far right gully. This second far right gully is as steep as the 6900 foot narrow gully/chute we were in previously. We went up to the NE ridgeline making some class 3 monkey moves near the end of this second far right gully. Once reaching the NE ridgeline we then headed SW on good class 2 and easy class 3 to the summit. Very nice!
We came down our exact route doing a series of downclimbing on the stable snow we encountered and back to camp. 8:30pm
Next morning Matt was gone as he had plans for earlier obligations. Carla and I headed out for Warrior. Up we went to the head of the valley up snowslopes to the 6840+ pass. I don’t know the name of the pass. We came down the other side and then up to the Warrior Col. We then traversed maybe 300 feet to the NE ridge of Warrior where there was still snow on this NE side. We immediately went up the NE ridgeline experiencing steep snow and high class 3 climbing. As we were going up the NE ridgeline I could spot two cairns further south of our position, so maybe we were not on route and maybe the route was further to climbers left? The angle eased back after maybe 200 feet and then it was a pleasant scramble to the summit of Warrior. Nice again all day! We retreated whence we came and we did complete one rappel in a tricky section. Back to camp. Round trip was 6 hours.
We came out from camp seeing many footprints of people leaving the Constance valley to car in 4 hours utilizing the bicycles. I will never return to Constance Lake because I now have completed all the peaks I have wanted to in the area. Been there three times now. This was the first time I saw it without being snowfilled. Man I had a great time!
Constance and Warrior
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Matt Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 4307 | TRs | Pics Location: Shoreline |
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Matt
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
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Mon Jun 18, 2018 10:51 pm
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Oh, my, it's hard to keep up with Stefan. 6 miles and 1000 feet uphill of road biking to reach the Lake Constance trailhead from the washout on the Dosewalips Road. Then 3200 feet uphill on the notoriously steep trail, which is now covered with fallen logs from the burn on the bottom third, plus the steep rock bands on the top third. Then another 1200 feet uphill to Stefan's campsite on a flat snow area below Constance. Then another 1800 feet up to the summit of Inner Constance. And that was just the first day.
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
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Matt Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 4307 | TRs | Pics Location: Shoreline |
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Matt
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
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Mon Jun 18, 2018 11:39 pm
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Thanks, Eric. Your link has some great info and old photos of the area.
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
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Stefan Member
Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Posts: 5084 | TRs | Pics
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Stefan
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Tue Jun 19, 2018 3:55 pm
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C141 is a crazy place to have a lookout!
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raising3hikers Member
Joined: 21 Sep 2007 Posts: 2343 | TRs | Pics Location: Edmonds, Wa |
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b00 Member
Joined: 29 Sep 2003 Posts: 1144 | TRs | Pics
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b00
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Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:27 pm
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Stefan wrote: | ... maybe the (warrior) route was further to climbers left? |
yes, the route was farther climber's left. sorry my notes were not clear enough, my bad.
you reached the correct spot at the corner, but instead of turning up, you needed to continue traversing(south i believe) across slabs, or in your case, snow. after the slabs the next broad gully is the easy one that you should have turned up. whatever, you made it and probably in fine style!
congrats on the cool summits and glad you survived the lake constance trail ninja warrior training course
:>)
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iron Member
Joined: 10 Aug 2008 Posts: 6391 | TRs | Pics Location: southeast kootenays |
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iron
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Tue Jun 19, 2018 9:38 pm
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some people tick off peaks from their lists. stefan ticks off roads after he's climbed every accessible peak from them. i can't count the number of times i've heard him say: that's the last time i have to drive up that road...
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Jake Robinson Member
Joined: 02 Aug 2016 Posts: 521 | TRs | Pics
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Awesome, thanks for the report! Inner Constance has been one of my most wanted summits for a long time. Do you happen to have any photos of the North Buttress route? (route 5 in the Climber's Guide to the Olympic Mountains) Apparently a fun class 4 climb on an exposed ridge starting in the cirque SW of Warrior. I know someone who did it back in the '80s and they said it was a great route. Seems very seldom done.
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cascadetraverser Member
Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 1407 | TRs | Pics
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No easier approach in the state!
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