Steven's Peak-bagging Journey

November 1, 2019

1818m

North Cascades Highway, WA

Trappers Peak is rather a small summit but offers some of the highest view-to-effort ratio in the North Cascades. It rises more than one vertical mile above the deep Skagit River valley and the village of Newhalem, but good logging roads access dispatches about 600 m elevation gain. The ascent is mostly a hike on a maintained trail with only a few mile 3rd class moves on the upper south ridge. On a clear day this summit offers finest views of the east face of Mt. Triumph and the spires in southern Picket Range. Adventurous folks can easily extend the hike by tagging the northern summit that shares about the same elevation, unofficially known as “X Mountain”, and the round trip from Trappers Peak to “X” and back to Trappers Peak shouldn’t cost much more than 1 extra hour. I had analyzed the maps of this area and decided to save Trappers Peak for a sunrise hike. The plan was to tag the summit in the early AM and rush back home for work in the PM and evening. The length of this outing suggested that “half a day” should be plenty enough, and if time’s on my side then I would bag “X Mtn.” but if not, I wasn’t going to fuss about it.

The decision was made spontaneously for this past Friday when a rare high pressure system dominated over Pacific NW but I couldn’t manage to find volunteer(s) to suffer together. I drove down south across the border at around 11 pm and made to the trail-head after 1 am. My truck was the only vehicle parked there but I noticed shattered glasses indicating previous theft activities. This meant that the thefts must have owned some sorts of 4×4 vehicles because the drive to this trail-head does involve a few stretch of steep and loose spots. I probably could, but wouldn’t want to drive a passenger car up there. Nonetheless, I turned in and slept a couple hours in my truck. The alarm went off at 4:30 am and then I took my time cooking spicy ramen for breakfast before starting the plod.

The first portion of Thornton Lake trail was rather just the extension of the logging roads except that this portion of the roads was deactivated and long gone. I had to hop across at least two creeks on slippery, iced-up rocks and thankfully the main Thornton Creek crossing was bridged. The actual trail was well marked, not too steep and easy to navigate. I made some slow, but steady progress on the endless switchbacks and didn’t encounter snow until 1300 m elevation. The snow was icy and compact but no traction needed, and I made to the junction where Trappers Peak’s south ridge route branched off from the main Thornton Lake trail in just trail-runners. It appeared that hikers had gone towards Trappers Peak in this past week judging by the foot prints but the tracks did involve fair amount of post-holes so I took the first, and the only long break swapping footwear for mountaineering boots and gaitors. The hike onto the south ridge of Trappers Peak became steep in one spot that I probably would classify as “class 3-” and was pretty easy.

After gaining the proper south ridge the sky had brightened up enough that I no longer needed my headlamp. I followed the previous footsteps over a dip and then some steep, but easy ground. There’s one narrow spot with mild exposure but nothing particularly worth noting, until the summit block. The ascent was done on the east side of the block on steep snow. The snow was icy but utilizing the holes made by previous parties I didn’t have to use neither ice axe nor crampons. I arrived at the summit at least half an hour before sunrise. I wasn’t sure how long the traverse to “X” would take, so decided to wait patiently on the summit of Trappers Peak for sunrise to come, in wind and frigid temperatures. My figures were literally frozen while taking photos but the views were definitely worth the cold fest.

After having enough of the views I went down the north to explore the route towards “X”. The steep spot was found to be actually snow-free so I decided to bag “X Mountain” as well, for the sake reason of why not.

The hike to and back from “X Mountain” had taken me longer than expected, that by the time I was back on the summit of Trappers Peak I reliazed that I probably should start picking up some speeds on the descent. I still didn’t bother with any traction device descending the steep slopes below the summit and the easily followed the tracks back across that narrow spot on the south ridge. The rest of the descent was rather boring and tedious. I somehow managed to miss the spot where I ditched the shoes and had to backtrack a little bit to retrieve them. The last few kilometers on the abandoned logging road was done by a mix of walking and jogging. My round trip time was under 7 hours and that included some long waiting around on the summit.

I wasn’t doing particularly bad on time, but knowing that nobody’s around to help me on the driving I had to plan at least half an hour’s contingency for taking a nap. Indeed, I had to pull over in between Concrete and Sedro-Woolley to sleep. I woke up after about 20 minutes, had lunch in a nearby Subway and then sped north up I-5 faster than my normal driving speed. The border crossing was thankfully without too much of a delay. At that point I had about 20 minutes left. The drive to work from the border would be around 15 minutes, so I decided to go home for a quick shower, which resulted in about 5 minutes late for work. Not too bad..