The long days were giving me some ambitious after work ideas, and I thought The Ark looked like a fun climb that was a potential candidate. I was able to get started at 3:15 pm, which I thought would allow me a good chance of getting it done.
The first half mile was flat walking next to the Taylor River before I branched off up the Quartz Creek valley on old logging roads.
It was a super hot and muggy afternoon, and I took the opportunity to dunk my hat in any streams that I crossed over to keep my body temp cool. The old road trail was in good condition and made steady upward progress via a series of long switchbacks. At around 3400 feet, the character of the trail changed, passing over a creek and through a section of slide alder. The trail was pretty obvious and I was able to follow it as it angled its way northwest to the 4400’ saddle above. There were a few open boulder fields that had timely cairns, but overall, navigation was pretty straightforward.
There was some lingering snow near the saddle, so I ended up losing the climber’s path I had been following, but it was pretty easy to gain the ridgeline above through open forest.
On the ridgeline, I was able to locate another fairly obvious boot path, which lead me all the way up to the summit block, with only a bit of route-finding and snow to contend with. There were also some pretty big cliffs that dropped off the ridgeline to the north, but they were all easily avoided.
The final scramble was fun class 3 and reminded me quite a bit of the scramble on McClellan Butte. Great views were had at the summit, particularly of the epic monolith of rock that is Garfield Mountain. The view was both a new perspective on some familiar terrain, and also an inspiration to explore more of the North Fork of the Snoqualmie.
There were a few flying ants buzzing around the summit, but they weren’t too annoying, so I was able to chill for a bit. On the descent I followed the path I had taken on the ascent exactly and it worked well. Before I knew it, I was back on the old logging roads and zooming back to the car. I got back to the car in 4 hours and 23 minutes roundtrip with plenty of daylight left in the day. This was a great afternoon jaunt!
Final Stats: 11.33 miles / 4045 feet of gain
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