[Gimpilator]

John and Grant invited me to join them for a few days of peakbagging. Ultimately we wanted to do a bigger peak in Canada, but the weather was only to be good the first day. The best forecast was for the far east. As it turned out, it was bad there too. Thanks for doing all the driving John! It was a special treat to meet Grant, who is probably the most accomplished WA peakbagger you've never heard of. He has done every named peak in the Pasayten, has first ascents in the Beckey guide and has done over 3000 peaks.

Grant's meadow

Mount Kelly - 6417' This is a road walk on the northeast side from a gate, gaining over 3k. Minor snow patches near the top. Good alpine environment at the end with views of Abercrombie and other big Canada peaks.

Abercrombie

legendary duo

Red Top Mountain - 4640' Certainly the worst of the trip. We opened the doors of the car and clouds of hundreds of mosquitos engulfed us. I'm not exaggerating. Only seen them nearly this bad once before in my life. I was thankful that Grant let me use his repellent. The road got us close to the summit, but the bushwhack was bad and there was a lot of cut up debris on the ground which was difficult to walk over.

summit

Bangs Mountain (attempt) - 3640' We located two possible starting points and tried the southwest, because it started higher. I tried to lead a good way through the wet brush, but it progressively got thicker. After awhile we were all soaked and it would obviously take another 3 hours to go less than a mile to the top and back. Consensus was to bail. Graves Mountain - 5947' Walked several miles of the upper road from the west. This was an old lookout site. Minor rain and cloudy summit.

Wapaloosie Mountain - 7018' The morning weather was a little more clear. There was fresh snow on the ground from overnight precipitation. There is a cairn in the trees at the summit.

Wapaloosie

Scar Mountain - 7040' We descended directly down the west side of Wapaloosie to find the trail and then traversed to the south ridge of Scar. Fresh bear tracks in the snow. I was tempted to leave the guys and go for Copper Butte, but the weather was quickly deteriorating and we could hear thunder nearby. We descended in a blizzard. Just a typical June in WA.

blizzard coming

King Mountain - 6634' There was a lot of daylight left, so we walked the road up King. It made for a 17 total miles day. We found the far east summit to be 20 feet higher, despite the naming scheme on the map. We got another blizzard on the way down.

I let the pros do the research and navigation

Wapaloosie, Scar, Copper Butte

eastern true summit

Quartz Mountain - 4800' Drive up lookout site.

[RichP]

Interesting trip. I'm hoping to check out some peaks on the Kettle Crest soon myself.

[Magellan]

I really like this area. So darn far from home!