Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

October 6, 2019

2138m

Leavenworth / Icicle River Road, WA

Highchair Mtn. locates deep in Alpine Lake Wilderness about halfway between the town of Leavenworth and Stevens Pass on US-2 corridor. This is not a “big mountain” by any measure, but offers some unique views and perspectives of the bigger and well-known mountains nearby. The access is often done by traversing up and over Bootjack Mtn. along Bootjack Ridge trail that originates from near the end of Icicle River Road. The ridge traverse is mostly just a hike with occasional 3rd class steps that can be bypassed if one doesn’t mind some detouring. This past weekend Selena, Brenda and I decided to explore some peaks in the south-eastern Washington Cascades because that area had the nicest weather forecast. Selena suggested Bootjack Mtn. and I said we should aim to do both Bootjack Mtn. and Highchair Mtn. and the plan was then made. Earlier in the day we had already summitted Bootjack Mountain.

From the summit we scrambled down a gully onto a flat bench and then ascended up and over the bump immediately to the south of Bootjack Mtn. summit. From the south summit we descended easy slopes down towards Bootjack/Highchair saddle with occasional scrambling here and there. The connecting ridge at and around the saddle offered some fun scrambling oppourtunities and we certainly took advantage of that by staying exactly on the ridge crest. This way we got some hands-on 3rd class fun. Upwards towards Highchair Mtn. we opted to resume the ridge fun by staying on the crest, and this was a mistake. There was a great deal of unpleasant boulders that were somewhat loose and covered in fresh snow, making slow and tedious progress.

The tracks on my GPS showed that other parties had stayed lower on the eastern slopes in the trees. The forest looked snowy but at least there weren’t that many boulders so we decided to head down that way instead, but now we had to focus on our steps to get to the summit first. Thankfully the last 100 m or so wasn’t that bad and we were soon on the top, soaking in incredible views towards all directions.

After lingering for at least half an hour we slowly started the descent. I led a line following my instinct down the snowy eastern slopes, and other than a short stretch of boulders we did manage to stay away from prolonged boulder-hopping. The bonus of descending this way was some close-up larch experience. The larches were turning golden but not at their peak yet, so that’s a little bit disappointing. The ascent back towards Bootjack Mtn. appeared like a slog and it sure was. At least there wasn’t that much deal of elevation regain – 200 m or less. We took another long break on the summit of Bootjack Mtn. before bailing down the north ridge. The last break was taken at treeline to pick up our ditched shoes. Selena and I were very happy to finally be able to swap our mountaineering boots for trail shoes. The descent down Bootjack Ridge trail was tedious and never-ending but we did keep a decent pace throughout.

Our round trip time was just over 8 hours with lots of long breaks, so this is indeed a very enjoyable (and reasonable) day-trip outing. I hadn’t even heard about Bootjack Mtn. and Highchair Mtn. if not because of Selena’s suggestion, but I have to say that she definitely picked the right place to explore on this past weekend. I was happy that I didn’t have to drive the section from the trail-head back to Seattle so that I could get some sleep in. The drive back home from Seattle was relatively fluent except for a major crash near Bellingham that caused some detouring. I bot back home by 10 pm and that’s not bad at all for a trip to the Leavenworth area.