Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

October 19, 2023

2015m

Mountain Loop Highway, WA

Del Campo Peak is one of the more prominent peaks accessed from Barlow Pass on Mountain Loop Highway. The peak itself might not be well known, but the access passes through Gothic Basin and Foggy Lake and those have caught significant attention in the hiking communities in the recent years, thank to the exposure on social media. I was absolutely shocked that even some of my non-peakbagging friends from B.C. are aware of Gothic Basin. My original plan was to do the standard Del Campo Peak – Gothic Peak double-header as a proper day-trip, but Matt J. proposed to do Del Campo Peak without Gothic Peak as a before-work hike. I thought this is a beautiful area that I wouldn’t mind to come back in another time, so I agreed. Little did I know that this isn’t a very suitable before-work objective. Matt doesn’t do the midnight departure anymore, and the 4 am departure from White Rock was barely able to get me back in time for work, with trail running on most, if not all of the descent.

Raphael and Sean P. joined the team at the last minute but they would drive out separately. We agreed to meet at Barlow Pass trail-head at 6 am on Thursday morning. Matt showed up at my home earlier than planned, but we did not get to the trail-head until 6:10 am, so the driving was longer than expected. Had I been the driver we would be even slower as Matt drives considerably faster than the averaged. The initial few kilometers could have been biked and in fact, I had biked this approach to climb Monte Cristo Peak, but as a group we decided against biking. I would still prefer using the bike as plodding on flat ground is one of my least favourate. Matt led a blistering pace and I needed to jog to keep up with the pace, as again, walking on flats isn’t my specialty. I was only able to pick up and lead the pace after the trail became steep, as the pace now was maxed out by our cardio ability instead of the striding frequency. It was a long and gradual ascent to the tarn below Foggy Lake, passing numerous streams along the way. I had decided to not bring too much water but I did not anticipate that many sources of water even below the lake.

We got our first beams of sun rays at this unnamed tarn and it was here that I realized I had forgotten my signature Outdoor Research hat. After flying around some 4-letter words I had to calm down to focus on problem solving. There’s nothing I could do beside applying a shit ton load of sunscreen all over my neck and ears and I was still feeling uncomfortable, so I needed another solution. After skirting around Foggy Lake I called for a break. I had brought a green bag from T&T supermarket to store the sandwiches and I thought I could tuck that bag underneath the helmet to customize a sun hat. This might seem ridiculous but actually worked. The downside was that I would then need to wear this helmet-bag combo for the rest of the trip all the way back to the parking lot. Meanwhile a few of us also needed to take a break to lay some alpine ducks so I didn’t actually slow down the group.

We plodded up a shallow gully full of loose rocks on climber’s right side of the ridge crest and this section was different from the reference GPX track that I had previously downloaded. The tracks merged afterwards and we ascended Del Campo’s south slopes to the entrance of the gully between the true and the false summits. This section was mostly done by boulder-hopping and the boulders were somewhat loose. I did not have time to read “beta” in depth, nor would I need detailed “beta” for a scramble that’s barely 3rd class. A few of us reminded me that the correct way was to ascend the rock on climber’s left side of the gully even though the natural way might seem to be the gully itself. I listened and led us scrambling up class 2-3 terrain with solid holds. The end of this zone was the SE Ridge and I could see that we had successfully bypassed the rumored 4th class crux at the top of that gully. The crux for our route was actually near the summit where we veered climber’s left into some 3rd class chimneys. Those chimneys were without exposure, but a few moves were needed. Twig needed some assists but it was overall quite straightforward, that in short time we all arrived at the summit. It had taken us 3.5 hours to ascend this peak so the time’s ticking. We were quite a bit slower than I thought and I might miss the work after all.

After taking in enough of the views we decided to retreat. There’s nothing magic beside reversing the exact route that we took on the ascent. I felt the descent was rather easy. The 4 of us regrouped after finishing the hands-on stuffs and then Matt and I had to take off. I estimated that if we wanted to have a proper lunch (which Matt preferred), then we would have to run most, if not all of the descent. I was also aware of a short-cut to bypass that tedious skirting of Foggy Lake. I used to never run on the downhills but the few trips that I did with Kostya in this summer had somehow trained me on that. We did end up taking that short-cut (minor bushwhacking and route-finding), and ran most of the descent, and concluded the round trip in 5 hours 45 minutes. We did earn ourselves enough time for a proper lunch but that’s because Matt was able to stay awake and did not need an additional break during the drive. Meanwhile I took some naps on the passenger seat. I eventually got back at 3:15 pm just in time to show up at work at 3:30 pm.