I make a pilgrimage to the Phelps Creek Trailhead about once a year. The area is home to some of the biggest peaks in Washington, complete with beautiful meadows, lakes, and larches in the fall.
This particular trip was an early season venture into Spider Meadows with the hopes of climbing Dumbbell and Greenwood – Washington's 73rd and 74th tallest mountains respectively. These peaks are in an impressive location, with intimate views of Bonanza and the Fernow group.
My dad, Fern, and I got started early at around 3:15 am from Phelps Creek, walking the now very familiar and gentle trail for 3.3 miles until we hit the turnoff to Leroy Basin. The only concern in this first part of the trail was a tricky creek crossing that we needed to take our shoes off to cross. Beyond this turnoff, we carried onward for another 2ish relatively flat miles until the trees began to thin and we entered the wide and brilliantly green Spider Meadows.
Traveling through the meadows was very pleasant in the early morning air. Anticipation was growing now that we could finally see some of the big peaks in the area being lit up by the sun. Eventually, we passed out of the meadows and hit the junction with the Spider Gap trail 6.3 miles after leaving the car. From here it was all new terrain for me, as we set out into Phelps Basin. I loved the big, pointy, subpeak of Phelps ridge we could see far above us.
At the creek’s headwaters at about 5800’, we veered east and began our ascent up out of the basin and towards Dumbbell and Greenwood. We followed the path of a small creek up through some rocky, class 2 terrain. This was off-trail travel but was generally pleasant and open despite being a steep climb. We eventually hit consistent snow at around 7000’ and powered up the open snow slopes for about a thousand feet, aiming for the obvious notch below Dumbbell. The panorama of Red Mountain and Phelps Ridge behind us was a beautiful site to see as we gained elevation.
It was here at this notch that we got our first views of the Fernow group, towering above the Big Creek valley. We had decided to go to Dumbbell first because it was further out, which meant we would handle its infamous ledge system first.
This infamous ledge to get to Dumbbell seemed almost too perfect - a narrow sidewalk carved out of otherwise steep and unforgiving terrain. Although probably only technically class 2-3, it would be easy to psyche oneself out on this because it is quite narrow and there is serious exposure to one side. For me, I found there to be two “cruxes” on the ledge. The first was getting down from the notch below Dumbbell and actually onto the ledge. It comprised of a short downward sloping bit of rock and dirt covered in kitty litter and took some care to not slip on.
The next “crux” was a slight bulge in the rock wall that forced us to get low and crawl past it. This part was a bit unnerving with a backpack on, but we all successfully managed and were soon continuing on across the ledge system. The rest of the ledge was pretty routine, although I found myself hugging the rock wall because I didn’t want to get close to the precipitous drop to my right.
The ledge felt longer than it actually was because of our careful pace, but soon enough we were off of it and on the home stretch up Greenwood. We first crossed a permanent snowfield with a beautiful pool of turquoise meltwater in it before beginning our climb up the final 600 feet to the summit. This stretch was a rubble pile of class 2 rock, which would have been a lot worse if it was steeper.
We topped out on Greenwood at 8:50 am, a little over 5 and a half hours after leaving the trailhead. The views were pretty awesome – I particularly loved this angle of Bonanza and looking back down on the meltwater pool below. We hung out for a good bit and signed the register that was kept in an old rusty, red can.
It seemed like the weather might be changing a bit, so we decided it was time to reverse course and get back across the ledge. The ledge went smoothly on the way back and we were all relieved to be back across to the notch below Dumbbell. From here, we were very close as the crow flies to the summit, but our research on the peak was limited, so we didn’t know exactly how to attack it.
We decided to just traverse the semi-steep snowfield at the 8000’ contour, which would lead us to climbable rock. This traverse was short, but definitely worthy of having our ice axes out. Once at the end of the traverse we were able to clamber off the snow and onto class 3 rock. A bit of semi-exposed scrambling took us up to the final ridge of Dumbbell. 200 more feet of class 2 to 3 fun scrambling brought us up to the summit! It was a great feeling to have our second Bulger down for the day.
On our descent, we followed the same approximate scrambling route that we took on the way up. We got down to where we had left the snow traverse on the way up, but this time had no reason to make the traverse. Instead, we just angled straight down the snow slope from there. It was surprisingly steep at first, and we used a combination of face-in downclimbing and plunge stepping to get down to more gentle terrain.
Once we had dispatched the steep snow, we were back on our ascent route, and it was full sleep ahead back to Phelps Basin. The weather had now officially changed and we were starting to see some dark clouds billowing on the horizon.
By the time we reached Spider Meadows we could hear thunder in the distance and were caught in a brief, heavy rainstorm. So much for the beautiful day we had been having! Thankfully the rain didn’t last for too long, and we were back in the woods to make hike the final 5+ miles out.
We finally reached the trailhead under 14 hours after we started, satisfied with another successful day in the mountains. This trip helped to reinforce why I will keep coming back to this area.
Final Stats: 18.2 miles / 6,336 feet of gain
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