Sat July 21, 2001
John and I shouldered our packs at the Trinity parking lot about 9 am. The trail heads up the Chiwawa River trail towards Red Mt. It's an old mining road, easy to hike and goes fast. The bugs were not bad and temperature moderate with some cloud cover. We climbed up to the end of the mining road and eyeballed Chiwawa Mt across the way. Dropping a little off the trail, we found a great camp overlooking the Chiwawa valley at about 6200'. After setting up camp, we headed straight up for Chiwawa Mt per the route described in "75 Scrambles".
The route was open terrain about 1/4 covered in snow. Climbing way up a narrow snow finger, we made it to the ridge east of the summit. There waited a solo climber at a tricky spot. We downclimbed the ridge and looked at a scary notch. The guy asked if we had a rope, belaying with a sun-bleached sling that he found. After looking through the foggy view to the other side, I said I'd belay him with my 60' rope, but wasn't going to follow. It was just a tad beyond my comfort level. He agreed, and so did John, so we all dropped down. John and I decided to climb Red Mt instead, and try for Chiwawa again the next morning via the SW ridge route. The other guy scampered off to the west well below the summit.
While descending the snow, we noticed he was making good progress up the S ridge. So we followed up some loose gullies and steep meadow areas to the ridge. It wasn't appealing to descend that way, and we hoped to find a better alternate. But the ridge was very straightforward. After crossing the ridge up high, it was an easy climb to the summit. There were no views in the clouds, but we were satisfied with a hard-won summit. We descended the ridgeline and stayed slightly west of the ridge in relatively easy terrain to meadows at 6600'. From here, it was no problem traversing back to our camp at 6200' an hour before dark. I would rate our route on the Mountaineer scramble system for Chiwawa as 5 on our ascent route, but only 3 or 4 on our descent route. We were tired after a 6200' day and decided Red Mt wasn't really a peak anyway (due to little prominence). Satisfied with a successful scramble, we enjoyed our excellent campsite.
Sun July 22
We awoke to partly cloudy skies. We took the Fortress high route (ref: Routes and Rocks) down towards the Chiwawa River. The route looked very intimidating on the flanks of Fortress Mt. After considerable time scoping the route, we decided it wouldn't go safely, and dropped down to the Chiwawa River instead. We planned to take the Massie Lake high route to Buck Creek Pass. But at the river, we found an easier route up to the saddle at 7040'. On one short rock section we dragged our packs up using the rope, but most of it was not technical. The clouds moved in and we were barely able to triangulate our position. We dropped down the other side and found a path of sorts down the easy ridge. Here we bumped into the abandoned Massie Lake trail. From here it was easy trail to Pass No Pass. The terrain has large beautiful open meadows with great potential for wildlife spotting. Terrific stuff! There was a great campsite in grass next to a creek babbling down from Pass No Pass. We set up camp and consolidated our remaining gear into one pack.
I shouldered the pack and followed John up to Fortress Mt. He was climbing at a tremendous rate, and I was at my anaerobic threshold trying to keep up. The first section was steep meadow, followed by a short gully. After that the terrain was semi-steep meadow for a long ways up. We climbed into the clouds and were disappointed with the poor visibility. But we continued anyway. Eventually we reached a steep snow slope. John mightily kicked steps as I panted far behind. It was great getting off the steep snow and on the bouldery ridge. From here it was mostly easy scrambling. If only the visibility were better, this would be a great climb. But slogging through the fog we hoped we could find the summit. Suddenly about 50 feet below the summit, we climbed out of the clouds to tremendous views of a few peaks poking out of pillowy sea! Glacier Peak was the outstanding view to the SW, glorious in the sunshine. We basked for a time on the summit. Then we headed down the nice grippy snow to the meadows. Our descent path varied to the east of our ascent path to avoid the steep heather. We found a really good set of game/climber paths that skirted above the cliffs and back down to the Massie Lake high route. I'd rate Fortress at 4 for technical difficulty. We got back to camp pretty shortly before dark.
Mon July 23
During the night, the clouds dissapated and we woke to a blue sky treat. We hiked up the short distance to Buck Creek Pass and enjoyed the large meadows in the area. There were still no bug problems, which was a suprise! Dropping the packs, we headed up to Helmet Butte. There were a few paths here and there, but we kept losing them. Finally we headed right up the fall line to the summit block. There was a bit of class 3 rock on our confusing corkscrew route, but we managed to solve the problem and sat satisfied on the summit. There are stupendous views that we had missed during our cloudy trip, so we enjoyed them for a little while. The summit register was quite old -- 1970 with all the names from 1966 copied from the original scraps of paper. It's surprising the peak is not climbed often. There are only a few lines left in the register though. We found a more straightforward descent route, almost directly to Buck Creek Pass. There is a profusion of game trails traversing the high meadows.
Loading up the last water we'd find for quite a while, we headed up the trail to High Pass. En route we summitted the easy Liberty Cap, only a few hundred feet above the trail. Continuing past the official trail on boot-beaten path, we crossed one steep snow slope where I had to switch from running shoes to boots. At High Pass we dropped off our camping gear and crampons, and set off for Napeequa Peak.
Napeequa is only 1000' higher than High Pass, but is a truly a grand peak. John took off traversing the steep snow slope. Half of it went easily with good steps, but then we stepped onto the previous year's snow. This snow was hard and didn't provide much purchase. Thankful to get across, but wishing I'd taken the crampons, we scrambled up the blocky rockfield that leads to the summit. It went quite well on class 3 rock until just before the summit. Here, we were stopped at class 4 terrain. What a disappointment, only a rock throw away from the summit! We summitted a bump nearby and called it our summit. But John was not to be denied yet. He wandered around the side and tried another rock gully. Nope, it would not go. Oh well... but John was still eager to get that summit. He wandered even farther and found a decent, relatively safe route. But it also dead ended. Darn the luck! John was still not ready to give up hope and managed to find a 4th route that went quite nicely. On top was a cairn with a film cannister with Mike Torok's name from Sept 12, 1998. It's amazing that nobody else has climbed it since! We rated Napeequa at two definite thumbs up. The views are stupendous of the Honeycomb Glacier under the DaKobed Range, Glacier Peak, and thousands of peaks in any direction. I'd rate Napeequa at scramble level 5.
Cirque Mt was so close to Napeequa that we couldn't possibly resist. Besides, four peaks in a day gives one certain satisfaction. So we descended down safe rock and scree to the bottom of the icy area and crossed on good snow. Before we knew it, we were on the far ridge of Cirque and heading up. It's easier than Napeequa, with a large rock on the summit. Neither of us were willing to stand on top, but we tagged it by hand. No register found. I'd rate Cirque at scramble level 4.
We dragged ourselves back to camp at High Pass, and considered doing Cleator. But we decided to leave it for our September hiking trip. During the late evening, lenticular clouds appeared near many of the peaks. Within an hour we were socked in dense cloud, with visibility only a few hundred feet.
Tue July 24
In the morning it was instrument conditions with even less visibility and a bit of light sprinkles. Our plans to climb Cleator, Buck, and Berge fogged over so we descended down the Napeequa valley instead. With some compass, map, and altimeter work and a previous party's tracks we made it below the cloud level to the upper valley below High Pass. This is an incredibly scenic area, full of waterfalls, meadows, glacier views, and grand vistas. A path continues down but disappears in brush where the river drops over a waterfall. At one point we crossed the river on a snow bridge. I doubt it will last too long. We crossed the river again further down, getting our feet wet but at a safe crossing. Then we entered the brush for a 600' drop. Somehow we found a dry streambed that went most of the way down, so the brush wasn't terribly bad. But it ended at an uncomfortable dropoff. We found a sidetrail heading straight through slide alder jungle, but it only lasted a couple hundred feet. Here we found open meadow and a little more brush. Soon we were plopped at the bottom of the wide Napeequa valley next to the river. The old abandoned trail continues downstream for miles.
In a few places, this old brushy trail is lost in the grass. But routefinding is so easy that we managed to re-find the ancient and venerable tread. At one particularly grassy section, I didn't see a 4" log protruding into the trail. My kneecap slammed right onto the end of it. I screamed out in pain and cursed a blue streak. John was way ahead. When I found him at the junction of the Boulder Pass trail, my knee was bleeding and I was limping. I washed it out in the river, and checked out the ford to the Boulder Pass trail. It looks about thigh deep, but hard to tell in the milky glacier-flour water. It looks not too bad since the water isn't terribly fast.
We followed the trail another couple miles, then lost it. John studied the map while I nursed my sore feet and whined about my knee. We took off uphill because we'd gone too far downstream. It was pretty hard to walk uphill in the grass due to my leg wanting to stay straight. Finally we bumped into the trail heading up to Little Giant Pass. This was much easier on that sore knee. But the trail is very brushy, having not been maintained in 40 years. It was really hot too, and we both wilted on the ascent. Somehow we made it to the dry pass and collapsed.
After a painful downhill, I crossed the Chiwawa River a few minutes ahead of John and ran the 4 miles to Trinity to grab the car. By this time I'd reached the end of my physical limit and collapsed in a jello-like heap in the car. Fortunately, John was unphased by any physical exertion. A stop at the 59er diner revived us, especially their delightful large milkshakes. But what a trip -- six peaks and some of the best scenery imaginable!