Katie and I made the long drive to the Entiat river valley in the trusty Prius on Friday night. Once you leave pavement the road is 95% totally fine and 5% borderline for a Prius – there were some “grit your teeth and hope you have enough clearance” dry creek bed crossings and one mogul section of the road that required me to push from behind as Katie floored, but overall, the Prius performed admirably! A higher clearance car would have no problems. In fact, when we pulled into the parking lot there were six other cars and they were all Subaru Outbacks – the PNW trailhead stereotype held very true, even this far away from Seattle.
After a surprisingly comfortable sleep in the back of the Prius (I only had a slight ache in my knees from not being able to straighten my legs all the way), we got up and got going around 8 am. The morning was cold, and we both put gloves on early, but the day quickly warmed up. I’ve heard that the North Fork Entiat trail can be badly affected by blowdowns, but it was in remarkably good condition for us. HUGE shoutout to the trail crew that came through a cleared all the downed trees.
We made leisurely time to the turnoff to Fern Lake, which is another spot that is on the larch list for future years, and began the grind up toward the Pyramid Mountain Trail. This section has only about 1000 feet of gain but was surprisingly difficult after 7 miles of hiking with overnight packs.
By the time we intersected the trail, we were full on in larch country. The trees were out and in peak color, and the relatively even grade of the trail from there to camp made for a super enjoyable time. Eventually we made one final climb up to a stunning larch basin below Emerald Peak. I had only seen larches in this density one other time on our trip to Star Lake, and we were blown away. There are a few good places to camp, and we found one, a short hike up a small ridge above the basin. It had a great, durable surface, was surrounded by golden trees, and had good views out to Choral, Gopher, and the valley we had just hiked up. There was also a good water source flowing – this late in the season.
I had tentative goals to tick off three Bulgers on this trip, and we were a bit behind schedule, so I took off pretty quickly to tag the close ones, leaving Katie to happily nest in camp. I had originally thought I might go all the way out to Pinnacle that day, but since it was already later than I expected I shifted focus to Saska and Emerald. I thought I could do them in fairly short order and get back in time to enjoy and relaxing night in camp.
Saska was first on the docket, and I took off on the trail up towards Saska Pass, winding my way through pockets of larches as I went. I left the trail before it began traversing over to the pass, climbing directly up a steep, dry streambed. You could avoid this, but it looked more pleasant than side hilling on scree, which was the alternative. This section was quick and took me up to a nice bench with amazing views. From there, I could tell that my avoidance of scree was all for not, because the mountain in front of me was a giant pile of it. Here, I put my helmet on and met a friendly couple who were also preparing to climb Saska. To minimize our chance of rockfall, we opted to join forces and climb this one together, which turned out great.
The scree treadmill was only mildly frustrating, (definitely an aerobic workout!) and it wasn’t long before we were cresting the pass to the southwest of the true summit. Here, we were greeted with great views of Maude, SFJ, Fernow, Copper, Bonanza, Pinnacle, etc. I was grateful to be out here in perfect timing and weather.
From the pass, there is an obvious gully on the right side of the ridge, that is covered in smaller rocks, but I found it to be surprisingly solid underneath with careful foot placements. We still went one by one here, just in case there was any rockfall.
Once the gully was surmounted, there was some traversing on the right side of the ridge (look for cairns, although the optimal route is pretty obvious) before some class 3 scrambling to bring us up to the summit, around 50 minutes from when I left camp. For a peak with a seemingly bad reputation, I found it to be pretty enjoyable. We took a while to enjoy the views before making the fast scree ski back down to the Saska Pass trail.
It was nice doing two peaks in close proximity to camp, because I was able to say hi to Katie before jetting off toward Emerald, which loomed high above our larch basin home for the night.
I stayed in or near another pleasant seasonal stream bed, before ascending into another scree field with a pretty clear boot path dug into it. It was a two steps forward, one step back situation, but I eventually curled my way up to the summit scramble.
I found Emerald to be really fun, with pleasant scrambling and relatively straightforward route finding. I also tagged a satellite high point at the top that was obviously lower than the summit but looked fun. One of the unique parts of Saska and Emerald is that you can see all the way down to little slivers of Lake Chelan ~7000 feet below the summits. One other thing to note on this one – it was my 50th Bulger, meaning I am halfway done with the list. I’m sure the next 50 will be quite an adventure.
From the summit I made quick work of the descent, coasting back into camp before 5 pm. We had a really fun night in camp on an amazingly warm night for October. We were reminded that it is, in fact, fall because it got dark so early, so we were content to crawl into the sleeping bags early.
There is no rest for peakbaggers, so I set my alarm for the late 5 o'clock hour and was up and on the move in the dark back toward Saska Pass and Pinnacle the next morning. I had originally planned to get up earlier but being tired from the day before and not wanting to battle the Snow Brushy Creek burn zone in the dark, I opted for a more civilized start.
There was just beginning to be a tint of light in the sky as I crested the pass and walked by the Glacier Wilderness sign. From here I descended into the unknown. It was obvious where I was going, but still required some checking of the GPS as I weaved my way around burning logs and down ashy slopes. Since the burn was relatively recent, the ground is still pretty open, making for relatively easy travel, much to my delight. By this point, the horizon had brightened enough where I could turn my headlamp off, and I found myself making the easy crossing of the creek, about 1500 feet below the pass – that was going to suck on my way back.
I immediately began ascending the other side, stepping over some downed logs, but mostly able to stay in open terrain. There was no real sign of the 45 Mile Drive trail at this point, but I didn’t bother looking for it, just taking the path of least resistance. It wasn’t long before I was out of the burn and back into beautiful larch basins with babbling brooks and craggy peaks above. It was a great spot to find oneself on a clear October morning. The sun was just starting to come up and hit the Borealis ridge cliffs above me.
From here I climbed some crappy scree, before joining a bench and making a climber’s right ascending traverse up to the basin below Pinnacle’s summit. Then it was simply easy scree walking (although I was pretty gassed at this point) and class 2 ridge traversing to the summit, which is a beautiful spot to be. I savored the view and appreciated the weather, before reversing my steps exactly back to camp. Back through the charming larch basins, and into the burn, before the crushing 1500-foot climb back up to the pass. This climb would bring me up over 10,000 feet of gain for the weekend.
I returned to camp around 10:30 am and enjoyed a super pleasant hour and a half of lounging with Katie eating oatmeal and downing hot drinks and ogling some more larches.
At around noon we sadly packed back up and began the 9 miles journey back out to the car, very satisfied with a successful 2023 larch march!
Final Stats: 30.34 miles / 10,296 feet of ascent
Comentarios