Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

June 8, 2023

2513m

Winthrop / Okanogan National Forest, WA

Tiffany Mountain boasts over 800 m prominence and is also one of the top 200 highest in the state of Washington, hence it attracts peak-baggers. I initially came across this objective from Facebook posts. It seemed to me that it’s more often done from the north side together with Rock Mountain and Middle Tiffany Mountain but for those only needing the main objective, the approach via Freezeout Ridge from the west is the shortest, with only several kilometers and a mere 500 m elevation gain. Matt and I added this in after finishing Big Craggy Peak and West Craggy. The drive to this area is long from Vancouver and we wanted to make full use of the day.

The backroads in the area are all fully marked on Google Map so the navigation was rather straightforward. The drive between the two trail-heads took almost an hour, and I napped for most of the way. There were already great views from the Freezeout Trail-head and we estimated we’d be on the summit in one hour. Matt taught me to not bring anything but one water bottle (Nalgene), carried on hand. Since my left hand would be used to carry the Nalgene I only brought one trekking pole for the hike and that was fine enough.

There were several dead-falls within the first kilometer of the trail and Matt decided to do some trail maintenance using his chainsaw later in the day. There was no more blowdown higher up. In short time we broke through the forest and temporarily got some cool breezes. It had been a hot day. The trail extends all the way to the summit and we got there in just under 1 hour. There were numerous high point contenders and we visited all just to be sure. Matt needed time on the summit to do his Peakbagger update so I got a rare 30-min stay to soak in the views.

The descent was uneventful. My blisters were taking a toll on me so I slowed down significantly. Matt jogged ahead and went back with his chainsaw to clear the logs. There were two piles of blowdowns and the higher one required a bit of walking. Matt even cleared that pile of logs. Meanwhile Twig and I went down to the truck. The mosquitoes were bad that we were forced to wait inside the vehicle with doors closed. We then drove to Winthrop for a much-needed dinner. I ordered two scoops of ice cream for dessert but the size of the scoops here was ridiculous. The two scoops I got would be equivalent to 6 scoops in Canada, so asides that I only managed to eat one hot dog and that’s it. The rest of the driving was tiring and we eventually got back to White Rock at 10:30 pm. Matt unfortunately had another hour of driving ahead, back to his home in North Vancouver.