It was time once again to go in search of the Golden Alpine Larch tree. This is a coniferous tree that losses it’s needles in the fall. The elusive alpine larch grows at high elevations, on the east side of the Cascades. They like wet, shady areas and can tolerate high winds. These trees can survive where other trees cannot. The alpine larch is slow growing. It takes about 50 years to obtain 2 inches in diameter.
For this year’s Golden Larch trip, we headed into Ice Lakes which is known to have some of the oldest larch trees in Washington state. We did a loop trip through Leroy Basin into Ice Lakes and out Carne Basin. We made it a 5 day trip to allow for time to climb Seven Finger Jack, South Spectacle Butte, and Maude.
Our group of 8 hiked up the Phelps Creek valley trail until we hit the climbers path up to Leroy Basin. As we climbed into Leroy Basin, we were treated to a beautiful waterfall.
When we broke into the basin, Seven Finger Jack was directly above us. What a brilliant ridge line.
Climbing this time of year means lots of tent time. It gets dark and cold around 7pm and the sun doesn’t come up until 6:30am. If you are camped in a basin, the sun might not hit you until 9 or 10am.
After 11 hours in the tent, our group was happy to get up at 6am even if it meant wearing all your clothes. We had a quick breakfast and headed out to climb Seven Finger Jack. We were all anxious to get moving so we could warm up.
Soon we were above the ridge line and able to see Buck Mountain (summit goal of a previous Golden Larch trip).
The sun was slow to hit this side of the mountain. We climbed in the shade for several hours.
We finally found the sun 1000 feet below the summit. It made the final ascent very enjoyable.
The summit was quite comfortable with room for all of us to stretch out and enjoy the sun rays. For some reason, there was no wind.
The north side of Maude is a vertical face. Hard to believe the other side is a walk up.
After a long summit stay, we headed down. We still needed to pack up camp and hike to Ice Lakes which would be our camp for the next 2 nights.
The hike to Ice Lakes was on trail surrounded by the fall colors.
As we crested the final ridge out of Leroy Basin, we enjoyed one more break and a view of Seven Finger Jack.
When we arrived Ice Lakes, the sun was already gone making for a cold camp but this was ok since this side of the ridge got morning sun. Jim has been to Ice Lakes basin many times and says it is always windy. We found a nice wind break some previous campers had built so we were able to sit out and enjoy dinner as the full moon rose.
The morning brought blue skies and amazing color. The views were worth getting out of the tent for.
Over breakfast, we discussed our plans for the day. We had received a weather forecast which showed some wind and snow coming in overnight. Three of our group decided to climb Maude and head out to the cars. They were not interested in hiking out in the snow. The rest of us wanted to enjoy Ice Lakes and see if we could climb one more peak before our season came to an end.
Five of us said goodbye to Deb, Steve, and Brian and headed off to the Spectacle Buttes. North Spectacle is a Class 2 climb where South Spectacle requires some Class 4 climbing. When we reached lower Ice Lakes, Lisa and Doug decided to climb the north peak (the rounded peak on the left) while Fay, Jim, and I went for the south peak (the point one on the right).
Jim and Fay had already climbed South Spectacle but they were willing to share the experience with me. The route description I had from Beckey was different than the route they had taken previously. We all thought it would be fun to do something different and follow the route I had.
We dropped out of lower Ice Lakes and headed for the col between North and South Spectacle. We headed up too early and soon found ourselves on the wrong side of the north peak and faced with an enormous gully with no entry point. We either had to drop several hundred feet or climb up and over the gully. If we went up, we would have to traverse around North Spectacle Butte at cliff level. This looked to involve rock ledges and a lot of unknown terrain. We were all in. It is surprising that the three of us don’t get into more trouble together.
After a couple hours of teasing out the traverse, we arrived in the correct basin directly under the col between the north and south peaks. We quickly followed the route description I had which took us up the northwest ridge of South Spectacle Butte.
After a 1000 feet, our route came to an impasse. We looked around for several minutes before agreeing that the climb was over. How could Beckey have messed this up so bad? (We discovered after returning home that I had got my route description out of the old version of Beckey. The route was corrected in the newer version. Lesson Learned)
We did get a great view of Maude and Seven Finger Jack as well as the weather coming in.
From here, the quickest route back to camp seemed to be over the summit of the north peak. We returned to the col and then continued around the back side of North Spectacle. This route went through scree feilds and was out of the wind.
Once on the north ridge, we headed up toward the summit on nice dirt. The final 100 feet involved some Class 3 scrambling on solid rock.
As soon as we crested the summit, we were hit with high winds. Very cold. We searched for the high point and a spot to get out of the wind. There was a nice ledge with a great view of South Spectacle Butte.
From here you could see both Ice Lakes under Maude. The weather was getting worse. Time to head for camp.
We descended the 1200 feet to lower Ice Lakes in record time.
On the way back to camp, the weather came in. Instead of fluffy snow, it was ice pelts. With the high winds, this was awful and painful. The only thing we still had going for ourselves was daylight. We arrived camp just before dark.
After checking in with Lisa and Doug, we ate a quick dinner and retired to our tents to get out of the weather.
It was 10:30pm when the winds picked up, pulled out one of our stakes, and the tent collapsed on us. Jim was unable to get the stake to hold so he took a runner, anchored it to the tent, and buried it with rocks. With our tent upright again, Jim decided to check in on the others.
Doug had brought a pyramid tent with a center pole. To Jim surprise, it was laying flat on the ground covering Doug. “Doug? You OK?” Jim heard a “Ya” from under the flattened tent. Turns out a large gust sent the center pole straight through the top of his MegaMid.
Jim moved onto Fay and Lisa. Lisa had spent time earlier in the day anchoring the stakes down with extra rocks so they were doing fine. Jim actually heard them laughing. Once everyone was accounted for, Jim returned to our tent and we tried to get some sleep.
About 11:30pm the wind gusts picked up and started to swirl through the basin hitting the tent from all sides. The wind quickly pulled out so many of our stakes that Jim had to hold the tent up from the inside. This gave me the job of going outside and restaking everything.
After 15 minutes of finding rocks and tightening everything up, I felt confident that none of the stakes would pull out again. I returned to the tent and cuddled up next to Jim to get warm. We recently switched from sleeping bags to a comforter system to save weight and bulk. We were the warmest people in camp.
Just when we thought we were good for the night, the gusts actually got worse. This was nothing I had every experienced in the mountains. Then a gust hit us so hard, it actually picked up the bottom of our tent. This was more than our 3 season tent could take and a pole broke tearing through the tent fly. Not good. Now with every gusts, the tent would fall against us. There was snow coming in the tent through the netting. Everything was getting wet.
We did the best we could to stay dry by putting our rain gear on top of us. At 4 am, Jim wanted to get everyone up and hike out. I couldn’t stand the thought of getting up in the dark during a blizzard and hiking. I convince Jim to wait until 5:30.
At 5:20 am, Jim was up and packing. The tent was so collapsed that only one of us could move at a time. We had 6 inch snow drifts on each side of the tent which pushed us against each other. After doing all the packing Jim could do in the tent, he headed out to get everyone up.
He found Fay’s tent mostly collapsed with a broken poles and a tent fly tear. The girls had as much snow in the tent as out. The laughter had ended sometime around midnight. Needless to say, everyone was relieved to be getting going. We had survived the night.
Though the wind was still bitter cold, we did have blue skies which rose our spirits just a little. As the sun came up, we got to enjoy the beauty of the basin under the fresh snow. What a transformation from the day before.
The larch trees are so beautiful in the snow.
The snow made the trip out a little interesting since we kept losing the trail but I always enjoy hiking through white meadows.
We started the trip in shorts and short sleeve shirts and ended it by hiking in everything we brought that was still dry. To quote Fay, “… very memorable trip. The start was lovely but I sure would not like to repeat the ending.”
(I credit the last 5 photos to Jim. My iPhone battery was so cold, it would not turn on.)