Group: Everett Alpine Scrambling Group
Leader: Evan Moses
Elevation: 6,278 feet
Elevation gain: approx 3200 feet
Start: 8:00 am
Summit: 2:45
Back to Car: 7:00 pm
The cast of the trip: Dylan, Jerri, Becky, Bill, and Grizz.
Leaders: Evan and Jim
Hero #1: Dylan saves damsell in Distress on the snow slopes with one arm (A boost in the "chicks-dig-it" arena).
Hero #2: Bill saves gentsell in Distress (His own ass).. (A boost in the "wife-dig-it" arena). For what's it's worth Bill passes his arrest skills with flying colors (Even if the colors are a little on the brown side).
This trail was rugged, icy, and just plain atrocious. We started the hike in the rain and it was in the cats and dogs variety. It didn't let up until we made the ridge. We didn't correctly find the trail off of the back. We started to far to the west, but discovered a huge black steel encased munitions storage unit. Property of the USFS I gather, I began to grimly wonder if they might be doing some 4th of July activities today.. Hopefully on another mountain. There was also a plain warning sign that was meant for absolutely no confusion for the said reader (STAY AWAY). Within the first 5 minutes of the climb we consulted our maps and then marched right through snow covered alder to a creek which was forded with no MOFA emergencies. We proceeded up the hill and then found "a climbers trail". We followed this climbers trail, which switched from bouldery, to creek, to snow covered for about 1500 feet. After this the trail was lost due to the amount of snow. Evan, our fearless leader, demanded that we gain elevation. So Jerri leaded us up the steep, root, dirt, and snow slopes up to the cliff bands of cave ridge. Here we met open snow slopes, which we traversed left to meet our crux of the hike, the waterfall crossing. The traverse was through trees and snow, which was really icy, steep, and unnerving. Before the waterfall crossing, Bill slipped and almost found himself careening off of 40-50 foot cliff.. Good news, his ice-axe arrest training from 2 weeks prior paid off... He arrested himself and lived to prod on! Apon seeing him slip and come close to experiencing the hand shake with Mr. G. Reaper (He arrested himself quite quickly, so what I saw in my head is a little more daunting than what really happened, If he had no ice axe he would have gone off the cliff.. That is no embellishment). I suddenly wondered why I was doing this climb... I felt the need to turn back, but the others enthusiasm quickly drew my attention to the objective.. However I was scarred from this point on, I was wet, nervous, scared, and not happy. After the waterfall was more steep slopes mared by really icy snow. I slipped a few times, but quickly recovered without need of ice arrest. Others were pretty preturbed by the slope and, understandably took their time to conquer this part. We finally gained the Commonwealth basin and was rejoiced by all by feasting and needed party seperations.
From here we climbed the snow slopes to the west to gain the ridge of Snoqualmie mountain. The ascent was long and exhausting.. We took a rest break at about the 5100 foot level. I had forgot to pack my fleece beany hat and was suffering from cold because of this mistake. Bill obliged his extra one. I accepted his offer willingly, and it gave me the added warmth to slog on. I'll admit, from this brake point, looking upward toward the summit, I didn't think I would make it. I was beyond exhausted and longed for Don's truck and the eventaul destination.. home. However, seeing that we were way beyond the elevation of Guye Peak, and almost level with Denny, I summoned enough, not a lot but enough, energy to continue. The ridge climb was covered in huge cornices, and steep. It went from complete snow to talus every 200 feet or so. I found myself preferring the snow steps. Within 200 feet of the summit I was considering stopping and waiting for the three others to begin their descent. Bill relayed that the summit was indeed 200 feet away, and I'm not someone to give up after hearing how near I am from victory. I gained my second wind and made the false summit (Which is only 20 feet below the real one, but 15 minutes away). This was our groups summit for today. We were beyond our turn-around-time, so we spent 10-15 minutes savoring the views that finally opened up, ate, drank, then started our decent. The ridge descent was a welcome joy to a very weary Grizz. Plunge stepping is easy for me, I tend to be over confindent and a couple postholes tend to wind me. But I usually continue my crazed, fast pace. Dylan is pretty similar, but more crazed, he smoked me on the descent. However I was able to see him slip, where snow meets talus, he got some good air off of a nice rock and landed on some not so smooth, smaller ones.. His ass didn't seem too joyous. It took about 1 and a half hours for everyone to get back to the basin. A couple of people were, understandably, cautious on this descent.
It took just over an hour for everybody to get back down to the basin. Evan had radioed in to the trip leader to say we would "Tentatively be back at the parking lot by 5:30 pm." I knew this would not be the case and so did the others. We didn't voice our opinion publically to Evan because nothing is worse than a "half-empty" group.
I had been dreading the downclimb of the icy, tree laden, potentially cliffy area that we went up right after the waterfall crossing. It wasn't pretty, but I and others were estatic to discover that it wasn't as difficult as the ascent.. There was only one incident (See Hero #1 above). Someone slipped and Dylan recovered that someone. The way down from here I was certain we were going the wrong way. Everyone assured me that we were indeed on the right path.. I didn't believe them.. I was half right. We found a quicker and easier way back down to the waterfall crossing, but yes we were going the right way. The waterfall and the area right after, where Bill slipped, was uneventful and from here we made the slide alder area. We took 10 minutes to wait for the rest of the party, then we got to have some fun.. a short and sweet glissade, that happened to be the one and only glissade of the entire trip. But boy was it a welcome change.
From here it went from bad to ugly... We kept losing the trail and then re-finding it, Descending steep dirt and wet roots, I slipped, so did a few others. Dylan, Jerri, Bill and I took the lead and finally got on the trail that had no snow interruptions. The trail from here was overgrown, surrounded by Devil's club, and the trail was strewn with large boulders.. To add to the mix the trail was pretty much a creek. I discovered that my left boot was a little too snug on the downclimb, and was constantly delievering blows to my toenail. However I and the others kept up a good pace because, simply, we wanted off the damn mountain. Finally we were in sight of the parking lot and in a snow covered alder area. I picked up my pace, and postholed at a pretty good velocity. I found my face slamming into the snow, which elevated my rage meter. Jerri laughed her ass off at seeing the spectical, which remarkably cheered me up (This sometimes can produce the opposite effect). Got my leg out after some considerable effort and finally found myself down to the parking lot.. VICTORY!!! Now I figured we had to endure the wrath of the other groups.. Let me backtrack here a little.. This event was the Everett Mountaineers Alpine Scrambling course practical scramble field trip. Half the class went up Saturday, the other Sunday. Our Saturday group was split into 3 groups. One did Denny, the other Kendal, and my group did Snoqualmie. We were told that nobody could leave until everyone was accounted for. The other two groups were back at the parking lot at 5:00pm. Our lucky group didn't get back until 7:00. I expected an angry mob when I made the trail to parking lot transition. Instead we got a bunch of passive-aggresive, just kidding, great group that was happy to see us in one piece. All this worry of being stoned by angry mountaineers was unfounded. 20 minutes later the remainder of our party arrived and we celebrated our accomplishments then hastily took off for some great North Bend pizza... THE END.
