[Eric Gilbertson]

Nine Washington Top 200 Peaks: Andrew (8,301ft), Amos (8,259ft), Freds (8,080ft), Sheep (8,274ft), Two Point (7,955ft), Bauble (8,025ft), Skeptical (7,949ft), Fool Hen (8,168ft), Fool Hen SE (8,055ft) Oct 5-6, 2019 Eric Gilbertson Saturday – 38 miles, 13,000ft gain, 4am – 10pm Sunday – 38 miles (31 hike, 7 bike), 8,000ft gain, 4:30am-6:30pm I'd recently got back to Washington after being out of the country all summer, and wanted to hike into the Pasayten to tag some remote peaks and see the larches. Interestingly, I discovered it sort of made sense to link together nine washington top 200 peaks in a ~75 mile loop.

The Route

Looking down from Andrew

Hiking up Freds

It would be kind of tough, though, since the loop would be mostly off trail and the area had seen up to a foot of fresh snow a few days earlier. And the parts on trail were in recent burn zones, so the trails might be difficult to follow. The loop would start at the Andrew’s Creek trailhead and end at the Lake Creek trailhead, which were about 7 miles apart by road. I planned to bike this section to speed things up. One of the major off-trail sections would be between the summit of Fool Hen Southeast and the Lake Creek trail. I figured it would be faster to bushwhack downhill, so decided to do the loop counterclockwise and then bike back from the Lake Creek trailhead to the Andrews Creek trailhead. The weather forecast was supposed to be rain/snow ending mid morning Saturday, so I also figured it would be better to hike a trail section in the early morning Saturday in the rain/snow than be bushwhacking in those conditions.

Looking back at Freds Mountain

Sheep Mountain in the distance

Approaching Skeptical Butte

Friday night I drove to the Lake Creek trailhead, dropped off my mountain bike in the woods, then drove over to the Andrews Creek trailhead to sleep. Saturday I was up at 3:30am and moving by 4am. I had thought about gear selection quite a bit for this trip. I wanted to go as light as possible to put on all the miles carrying overnight gear up and over most of the peaks while bushwhacking and postholing. But I couldn’t skimp out too much since it would be wintery conditions. I ended up wearing my shoulder-season leather boots (instead of trail runners + mountaineering boots), and took my bivy sack + tiny 30F sleeping bag instead of tent and warm bag. The low was supposed to be in the lower 20s F, but I figured I’d wear all my clothes and make it work to save weight. I left the trail near Andrews Pass and hiked up the south ridge of Andrew into a whiteout. It was challenging scrambling through the partially-snow-filled boulderfields. I then descended the north ridge and hiked up Amos.

The view from Skeptical Butte

Heading towards Fool Hen

Looking down past Fool Hen Lake towards my intended exit route

From Amos I dropped down to Glory Creek, then scrambled up the 3rd class northeast ridge of Freds. Interestingly I triggered two foot-deep windslab slides in the gully, one of which almost knocked me off my feet! But they were very small pockets and only slid a foot or two. I followed the northwest ridge from Freds down to the valley below, then took a trail up to near Sheep Mountain. I left the trail and tagged the summit at sunset, just as a whiteout set in. Navigation was tricky, but I found my pack on the way down. I wanted to camp there, but needed to make some more progress, so hiked another two hours south to Larch Pass by 10pm. I bivied there for the night, then was moving at 4:30am the next morning to tag Two Point in the dark. I returned to my bivy sack, then hiked and bushwhacked to the pass below Skeptical Butte. I hiked up the northeast ridge of Skeptical, then dropped back down and hiked up the south ridge of Bauble.

Some of the more open bushwhacking terrain on the abandoned Lake creek trail

Black Lake

Biking back to the car

From Bauble I descended around Diamond and Foxy and scrambled up the ridge to Fool Hen. It was an amazing ridge run from Fool Hen to Fool Hen Southeast, though slow going with the snow. My map shows a trail here, but I saw zero evidence of it. Maybe it's long abandoned. I left Fool Hen Southeast, my final mountain, at 1:30pm and followed the north ridge down. Bushwhacking was challenging in the valley, and I met up with the Lake Creek trail by 3:30pm. Unfortunately I think it has been abandoned since the 2003 Fawn Peak fire. I eventually made it to Black Lake, where the trail improved, and I trail ran the last 4.7 miles to the trailhead (awkward with my big pack and boots). From there I biked back to my car at Andrew's Creek and drove back home. Link to full report and more pictures

[Brushbuffalo]

Phenomenal. With respects to other Erics or Eriks I am omitting, there is something about being named Eric on NWHikers....you, r3h, cartman, and Eric the lookout finder....you each do ambitious things and are nice enough to share your adventures with us.

[RichP]

Man, you get around. I enjoyed browsing your website. Particularly your reports on El Aconcagua and Ojos del Salado which I may be checking out soon.

[Gimpilator]

75 miles, 21,000 gain, and 9 peaks in 2 days, with a foot of fresh snow. Only Eric Gilbertson.

[Brushbuffalo]

[neek]

I've been meaning to ask - with phone booths becoming scarce, where do you change?

[Michael Lewis]

Brutal. My legs were sore 5 days after day-tripping just Enchantment. Don't know how you got your body to do all of this. What did you do for recovery? How did the lecturing go afterwards?

[cascadetraverser]

Wow! I am impressed. I wanna do your trip but take a week!

[Eric Gilbertson]