Davis Peak [North Cascades, WA]

April 10, 2026

2150m

North Cascades Highway, WA

There are a few peaks with the same name in Washington and this is the hardest of them, the one not far from Newhalem in the North Cascades. This peak has reputation of being tough. About a year ago Ryan S. and Nick R. went off the beaten path and did an exploratory ascent/descent by traversing onto the SW Face (on skis), and subsequently downgraded Davis Peak to a non-technical objective. The steepest snow they had encountered was only 40+ degrees, as opposed to the 65-degree notch on the old standard (south ridge) route. The SW Face has since become the standard route of this objective for obvious reasons. However, despite the peak being “non-technical” the approach is still a daunting one and in fact, without a healthy snowpack the Ryan/Nick’s route involves more bushwhacking in alders in addition to the insane amount of dead-falls and bluffs in the lower zone. I don’t know if the Washingtonians are plainly tough or simply didn’t want to stress too much in their trip reports, but I thought the bushwhacking on this approach is one of the worst I’ve done at least in Washington, and I have done fair amount of stuffs.

Mel and I had this common objective for a number of years ever since we did Sourdough Mtn. back in 2019, but I was never too overly keen on it. A week-long high pressure system formed in the beginning of April with the first half being “too warm” but the second half having some much-needed freeze-thaw cycles. I hadn’t been watching the conditions in Washington recently but I knew this would offer a prime window for Davis Peak, and Mel agreed. I did however ignore the fact that the snowpack was in a sad state this year so we would be dealing with more bushwhacking than expected. I had read most, if not all of the trip reports but nobody overly stressed on the bushwhacking part. I knew this approach would suck no matter what, but I wasn’t mentally prepared to deal with one of the shittest approaches ever. In any case Mel and I left White Rock at 9 pm in the previous day and car-camped at the Gorge Falls tourist parking lot. The road was still closed not far beyond that spot due to landslides so I was surprised by the amount of vehicular traffic at night and in the morning. The next day we woke up at 6:40 am and did the morning routine rather leisurely. There was no concern in avalanching given the “green brick” forecasts for days so I’d rather get some sleep. For the gears we opted to carry snowshoes, two axes and a 30-m rope. The rope was mostly for the forested bluffs as most people did stress out the difficulties there. I however, felt the rope being completely unnecessary. It was class 3 with maybe a few class 4 moves, and the exposure wasn’t deadly. The snowshoes might seem unnecessary given the higher snowline but were actually quite needed. The snowpack we having having right now is still “early spring” pack, after all.