Although the weather report wasn't super promising, the skies were clear as our group of 4 met in Arlington. We drove up to Swede Heaven and up road 1890 until snow stopped us just before a bridge (1650'). There were already two cars there and footsteps trudging up the road. Later I found out that was Stefan and Pilar and company, climbing East Higgins. We took the route described by Dallas Kloke in his Winter Climbs book. Walking up road 1890 until it starts downhill at about 1900', we headed north through a small amount of brush to mostly open forest. The ridge becomes more distinct at about 3400'. Here we put on snowshoes, and turned northwest to follow the ridge, avoiding some rocky areas by staying left in one or two places.

The ridge tops out at 4400' at a perfect break spot, with great views of Higgins and Round. Too bad the weather was so perfect, but someone had to be there! A short steep descent put us back on reasonable gradient and we snowshoed to about 4600' or so. A section of slightly exposed rock begged for a short belay, so I pulled out my 60' rope and we easily got around that area. We snowshoed the rest of the way to a nice flat summit area, where we basked in the sun and admired the Olympics, Puget Sound, and thousands of peaks from Canada to Mt Rainier. On descent we boot-axe belayed with a simple bowline-on-a-coil past the one difficult section, then sashayed our way to the car. A spectacular day, perfect weather and great companions made for a 4-star trip!