[ozzy]

It's been hard going to work lately with the awesome weather we've been having, so I found myself playing hooky on Monday lol! As luck would have it Bryan had the day off too. This trip we had our sights set on Lewis Pk, just off of the Mtn loop hwy. I'd had this one on the list for a few years now, I guess the unappealing nature of the peak had kept me at bay. Not to mention a few outstanding human beings had lost their lives up there too. Definitely a big loss to the community. Cheers FB and LI. So anyhow we set the plan in motion and made it out to the sunrise mine TH at 730am. At 8am we were on the move. We never set foot on the actual trail as we were heading 500ft uphill to the SE. The travel down low was trivial, steep forest duff with some deadfall to negotiate. Around 2800' we began a level traverse (south) towards Lewis's NW ridge. Travel began to get bushy through here which would be the general theme through out the day. The bush was never horrible by Cascade standards, but it was consistent and slowed progress quite a bit. After the creek on the topo was crossed we encountered a boulder field and took this up about 400ft then exited climber's right to gain the NW ridge. It was still a bush bash and at 3700' we found some rocks to take a break on. Though we had only gone a little over a mile and about 1400ft of gain, it felt longer just because of the terrain. It took us 2hrs to get here.

Oh look bush!!

Aww yes lol

First view of Sperry down low

Oh there he is

The ridge is rated class 3-4 and we'd already had our fair share of it down low. That is the one good thing about bush though...bomber veggie belays all day baby! So up the ridge we went. The forest opens up around 4000ft and we could breathe a little, and the ridge is more defined thus easier to follow. There is still plenty of bush, bobbing and weaving, and gendarmes to negotiate though. It turned out to be more tedious than we thought! The views were starting to really come out too, we got our second wind soon there after. All the surrounding peaks have a very rugged nature to them for sure! Del Campo, morning star, Sperry, and vesper are all in your face! Such a cool perspective up here. At 4600' we encountered a small gendarme that we had to climb straight up, then downclimb a 10ft step.(class 4) Other than that particular spot we bypassed every other obstacle on the left or right. The last 1000ft of the climb had us mostly on open slopes on the west side of the ridge. There was plenty of ledges covered with loose stuff so it was a little tedious as well. The peak is steep on both sides so a fall anywhere wouldn't end well. At last we topped out around 1230pm, about 4.5hrs from the car. Ho Lee Chit! Again I love the position of this summit and this view of del Campo never gets old! It was cool seeing the mega slab over on morning star too, and we could also see the route that Aaron and I had climbed a few years back! Sperry has also moved up a few spots on my list, it's gnarly looking from this side. We decided to take a shorter summit stay so we had plenty of time to navigate the bush on the way out. Whiskey was drank and views soaked in, cheers!

S fork stilly valley

A brief clearing

Morning star and Sperry

We be getting closer

Lewis and Del Campo

The fatty mega slab morning star!!

Vesper in the back

The class 4 step

Get it doggie!

Another stellar view of the valley

Del Campo is sicky icky from this angle!

Bryan coming up some ledges towards the top

Cheers sir

Oh Del Camp

Towards the montes

B-dawg on the summit proper

Looking down on our NW ridge, looks easy AF lol

Morning star to big 4

Sheep Mtn with Sloan peeking behind

I'm him

NW ridge again

What a day to be alive!

A little after 130pm we made our way towards the bushy descent. It's funny how short the NW ridge looks from above and we didn't get back down it much faster either. Again all the veggie belays helped quite a bit on the way down. We took our time and also took a few more breaks in between to soak this place in. We got off route a few times but it was never too hard to correct it. We made it back to the car around 530pm stoked to not have to repeat this one! If we were in a hurry we could have probably knocked an hour off each way, but we gotta enjoy ourselves as much as we can up there! The trip was a little more bushy than either of us expected and a bit spicier too. Overall it was a fun scramble, a dirty little peak, and another awesome area to get up to. I say it every time, but man the Mtn loop is one of my favorite places! So much history and some gnarly ass peaks! Well thanks again Bryan for joining and cheers to all! 6miles-ish 3200ft gain 9.5hrs

One of the nice stretches

Love this ridge

back up the step, yewwwww!

there...is where we were!

Hello bush my old friend.

[pula58]

Good/sad to see Larry's Ingalls plaque. He was a super nice guy. So sad that he fell off of the ridge.

[Chief Joseph]

A friend and I made a half hearted attempt at Lewis several years ago, we turned back where you took the photo of "The brief clearing". Good work and photos!

[puzzlr]

Thanks for this great TR with all the details and photos. I had this on my list for years but scratched it recently -- your report is what I'll have to settle for.