The original plan was a midweek bushwhacking/scrambling/peakbagging trip on the Alpine Lakes High Route with Jonathan P, Mike D, and Bob C from the WAC. Unfortunately, after a couple months of record heat and no rain, we’d picked the exact few days that the long range forecast put a big, wet storm. While I guess it would be classic Washington Cascades to be completely dripping wet while searching for the next devil’s club infested creekbed, I was glad that the plan moved east in search of drier weather. Between the various Plan B’s and Plan C’s, we decided to head to a cluster of peaks in the Sawtooth area outside of Twisp named Bigelow, Martin, and Switchback/Cooney (go ahead and find Twisp on your map, I didn’t know exactly where it was either).

The trail is 7 miles long, but it’s wide and not too steep to accommodate horses and motorcycles (it’s also been rerouted since the USGS map was published, but it ends up at the same place and there are ample signs so it would be difficult to get lost). We didn’t see any of either the gasoline- or grass-powered mounts on the way in on Thursday, but we did see a few on Friday and Saturday (including a whole herd of boy scouts on horses). But all in all, it was easy going over Horsehead Pass to our camp past Boiling Lake. This area has less of a “leave no trace” ethic than some others. Previous users have left traces both convenient (picnic tables, fire rings) and not (horse poop, garbage). We found a pretty well established horse camp off a side trail. Mike made the fanciest dinner I’ve ever had on a climbing trip (tilapia with white wine sauce and couscous with sauteed mushrooms and onions). I found a narrow nest in the soft ground between two trees to arrange my thin foam mat, bivy sack, and sleeping bag.

The big surprise came overnight — the drizzle started up again in the middle of the night, so I zipped up the bivy sack and was blind and deaf to the world until there was a minor fuss in the morning. When I groggily threw back the covers it seemed to be raining heavily, but somehow noisily, and not on me. When I located my glasses I discovered that the world beyond my sheltering tree was covered with a thin layer of snow, with more falling rather steadily. Quite a contrast from the 100F+ temperatures in Seattle just about 2 weeks before! We had a damp breakfast and decided to postpone our peakbagging at least until the peaks to be bagged were not hidden under clouds and slippery snow.

Snow! (photo by Bob)

By early afternoon the snow stopped, and Mike was for a run at Bigelow despite the lingering clouds. This turned out to be an excellent decision, since the rock had melted and dried, precipitation held off and the only weather we had to deal with was a stiff breeze at Hoodoo Pass. Hoodoo Pass to Bigelow is mostly a talus hike. On the top of Bigelow we found the summit register dating from 1995 (which included Jonathan’s previous ascent a few years ago). There were only a handful of entries from this year, most complaining about “SKEETERS”. One good thing about the snow is that it seemed to have eliminated this problem! Jonathan’s early season glissade had disappeared (the morning slush dusting unfortunately didn’t put enough of it back), but we found a soft dust glissade to descend back to the flowery meadow next to Boiling Lake.

Mike and Jonathan on Bigelow

Somehow we had brought 3 group dinners for a 2 night trip, so Bob and I collaborated to make another relatively luxurious dinner of burritos (my dehydrated jar of salsa experiment was a success). The big topic of dinner discussion (besides some friendly political argument) was what to do the next day: whether the morning’s snow delay meant we’d have to abandon the rest of our objectives: Cheops, Martin, and Switchback/Cooney. Bob decided that he would sleep in and take a leisurely hike out the same way we came in, and the remaining 3 of us would try an abbreviated loop of just Cheops and Martin and then back to the car.

There were no precipitation surprises that night (despite some ominous clouds and heavy rain in the distance, we didn’t get any more precipitation to speak of on the rest of the trip). The morning’s scrambling even went shockingly according to plan. We went up a well beaten informal trail to the saddle between Cheops and a grassy bump (including a stop for Jonathan to chat with a ptarmigan family), wandered up black-lichened but acceptably attached talus to the Cheops summit, ran the ridge to Martin (where we shared the summit, some kipper snacks, and the almost full summit register with Heidi and Annika from Twisp). Jonathan and Mike spotted the Martin Lakes trail from the summit, and a possible way to get to it down a relatively mellow talus/tree slope, which we did with some dirt sliding and vegetable belays (I noticed that the bushwhacking is much more pleasant on the dry side than the wet side of the Cascades). We even made it back to the car at approximately the time we predicted and had time to stop on the way back at the Big Y Cafe in Peshastin (breakfast all day!).

All in all, it was a great trip. We got a bit of snow, lovely scenery, flora and fauna (I learned that Ponderosa pine smells like baking cake), three summits, and one of the best parts was that we were done on Saturday and still had a day of weekend left.

• Mt Bigelow, 8440 ft, #68/100 Friday from camp at Boiling Lake via Hoodoo Pass
• Cheops, 8270 ft Saturday from camp at Boiling Lake via an informal trail, then along the ridge to the Cheops/Martin saddle to…
• Martin Peak, 8375 ft, #83/100 then down the talus slopes to the East to pick up the trail near Martin Lakes and back out to the car.

Links: google map, my photos, Bob’s photos.

The first hours of the ascent were like nothing else. The glow of headlamps strung out along the route, neighboring peaks floating above pink clouds at dawn, seeing the moon set and sun rise. Though I was literally tied to four other people, my task as second on the rope was simple and constrained: keep walking, don’t fall, watch the rope in front of me. In the darkness and silence, separated by 10 meters or so of rope from anyone else, I knew nothing of their private struggles with cold, nausea, dying batteries, uncertainty, impatience, and they knew nothing of mine. I didn’t know if anyone else saw the same thin clouds drifting in front of the red setting moon, or the same drape of icicles off the edge of a crevasse.

Summit View

The climb was uneventful (which was a good thing – nobody wants an event). We reached the summit 5 or 6 hours after we started, spent some time taking pictures, and descended to camp before noon. All that was left was a mildly unpleasant walk through soupy slush and on melting gravel roads and we were in the car heading back to sea level and back to the city. We had glimpses of the mountain all the way home, but we were already in a different world of traffic, laundry, work, and hot showers.

(more of my pictures, other pictures from Kristin, John, Daniel, Cara, and Ben)

Official trip report on the WAC site