Kyes Peak scramble, 7/17/04 (solo)

Due to a certain standardized test I had just taken, I had not really exercised at ALL for a MONTH!! That's way too much studying.  Accordingly I needed to get outside.  After flipping through a guidebook, I decided on Kyes Peak.  It's the tallest mountain in the area known as Monte Cristo.

I had some errands to run in the morning, so I polished them off, drove to the trailhead, and started hiking at 10:45am.

As with many hikes in Washington, this one starts off in a dense, lush forest.

Switchbacks continued upwards for about 3 miles.

Eventually, Kyes Peak popped into view.

The scrambling route cuts off from the main trail, continuing up a ridge.  The scrambling trail ranges from a well-established dirt path, as seen here, to ill-defined "jungle" hiking.  This variation may be due to me intermittently wandering off the trail without realizing it!

The full splendor of Blanca Lake slowly became apparent as the ridge brought me above the surrounding trees.

Eventually the ridge opened up, offering spectacular views of the distant volcano, Glacier Peak (which is the fifth-highest point in Washington State).

Looking back along the ridge. So far, so good!

The casual nature of the route quickly changed, however, when the going got more technical and I had to lose some elevation to continue on the ridge (seen on the lower right corner of this photo).

I then encountered some steep, loose, exposed rocky spires.  After looking at them in confusion for several minutes, I finally realized that I needed to hike down and AROUND them.  This involved scrambling through some steep, fairly loose dirt & rubble.

After dodging that obstacle I could see that there was still quite a ways to go! The obvious pyramid at the end of the ridge is the false summit, with the true summit immediately behind it.

I dodged some more rocky bits via some more rubbley detours, and arrived at the snowfield.

Time to crack out the ice axe and crampons!! Oh yeah. This was my first time "really" using crampons, and I was impressed with how much they expedited the ascent.  Instead of burning a bunch of energy kicking steps into the snow, I could just walk on top of the snowfield as if it were a road. Good stuff.

I encountered this fellow traveler along the way.  Now how did he get up here without bringing 4 pairs of crampons?!

At some point I knew I had to take a gully up to cross to the other side of the ridge.  Well, initially I took the wrong gully, and found...

A 500-foot dropoff! hmm, better backtrack.

I then took the correct gully, and apparently reached another dropoff--and at least a thousand feet this time! But I looked around...

and located an exposed band of scree that led around the corner.  To ensure good footing I kept my crampons on (it looks scary but this part was actually pretty casual).

I then found the summit snowfield. That's the summit itself in the center of the photo!

On this final quarter-mile stretch, I passed some animal tracks (probably a mountain goat?)  Wild!!

hmm...now how do I get up to the summit??

I peeked at the guidebook, and saw that the route climbs the left skyline. This last bit involves loose, fourth-class scrambling on scree-covered slabs

The scrambling is quite exposed. This is the view immediately to the left, from half-way up the summit block.

An official Mountaineers (r) summit register. Guess I'm on the top! Kind of takes away from the culmination of a day out "in the wilderness" but at least I could sign my name to officially document the ascent.

Of course, a summit photo is obligatory.

Rugged mountains were visible all around. This summit was the highest point for several miles in every direction.

Awesome view of Glacier Peak.

OK, time to downclimb that loose summit scramble (lower left portion of photo)...this was intimidating, partially due to the exposure.

Whew, back on the snowfield.  Looking back at the ridge...which I have to traverse AGAIN to get back to the car! It was about 6pm at this point, and it was starting to rain, so I decided to get moving.

Spectacular sunset on some distant peaks. By this point, I was nearing the main trail.

I hit the final trail around 9:30pm, and fired up the headlamp for the 3 miles back to the car.  I got there around 10:30pm, so close to 12 hours round trip.  The total distance is 12 miles.  The final ~2 miles of the ridge is continuously technical--and of course you have to climb everything twice (out & back), so the short distance is somewhat deceiving. trailhead=1900', summit=7227' so 5327' of elevation gain.