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A view of Sloan Peak from the Meadows The weekend was rapidly approaching and the weather forecast for Central Washington was sounding better than that for Vancouver so it seemed like a good time for me to head down and visit my friend Paul in Seattle again. At one point he’d emailed me a hit list of the peaks he want to bag in the area and one “peaked” my interest more than the others; Sloan Peak. In researching the possibilities, I had come across several places that referred Sloane Peak, WA as the “Matterhorn” of the Cascades. Having climbed the “Matterhorn” of the Rockies (Assiniboine - North Ridge) and having a dream of some day climbing the real Matterhorn, I was naturally attracted to this peak just by this allusion! I also read about an occasionally bushy approach trail that suffered from deadfalls, a potentially problematic river crossing and almost 6000 feet (1825m) of elevation gain, but that just sounded pretty normal by Pacific Northwest standards!

I got to Seattle on Friday night just in time to meet Paul at REI for a quick little window shopping expedition (and to pick up my favorite Balance Bars that Mountain Equipment Co-op decided to stop carrying). Afterward we went out for a light meal at the funky and not too expensive (as these places go) Japanese Bonzai Pub and Bistro. Sufficiently fortified, we finished the night off by getting our gear sorted for an early departure the next morning; I set my alarm for 5:45 am…..

….And slept right through it! Paul final woke me up at 6:30 and we did manage to get underway by 7:00 am. “Not a terribly auspicious start, but certainly not a show stopper”, I thought to myself. Little did I know! We headed North on I5, then turned East for Granite Falls and the Southern end of the Mountain Loop Highway that would bring us in the vicinity of Sloan Peak. In Granite falls we stopped for the usual quick, convenient and crappy McDonalds breakfast before hitting the road again.

A few miles out of Granite Falls we saw a very small white sign beside the road that said, “Mountain Loop Highway Closed near Barlow Pass”!?! This road is normally closed in winter so we thought someone had forgotten to take the sign down, but just in case we decided to check with the Ranger Station in Verlot, another 10 minutes down the road. Sure enough, the road was closed due to a washout (that may not be fixed for several years), effectively blocking the approach to Sloan Peak from our end. The time was now 8:15 am. To back track and catch the Northern end of the Mountain Loop Highway through Darrington would take at least another hour and a half. We finally decided that since the days were quite long and we had one head lamp between the two of us we’d go for it. Off we went and after getting lost another time or two we were finally at the trail head on the North Fork, Sauk River Road a little after 10:00 am! Not exactly an alpine start and disturbingly late for a hike that I’d read would usually take around 12 hours if all went well.

Waterfall (Picture taken on the way down after it clouded over) It was brutally hot as we started out so we decided to wear shorts right from the beginning. Also, since the river crossing was right near the beginning, I thought I’d save time by hiking to the river in my sandals. The first hundred feet or so of trail were fine, but the surrounding vegetation slowly closed in and soon we were wadding through a steaming green jungle, as if we were on some tropical safari. This was not too unpleasant until we started to run into dense clumps of Stinging Nettle as well as some of the usual Salmonberry and Devils Club. All in all, it was not a pleasant experience on bare skin. On the positive side, it did allow me to keep track of where Paul was by the sound of his cursing!

We followed a vaguely tracked and flagged route over several small streams, through a log jam and finally arrived at the knee deep river crossing after 20 minutes. With the relatively low water levels, the crossing itself was no problem and we again picked up the flagged route 100’ feet up the river bank as it punched through the willows into the forest. Finally we were back on something resembling a trail and beginning to climb. The trail beyond the river valley would actually be pretty good with some maintenance, but currently it is covered with large deadfalls every couple hundred feet which tends to become highly tedious! At 1000’ elevation gain we passed a small, beautiful waterfall in a grove of old growth hemlock, the cool spray providing a welcome respite from the still, blazingly hot, humid forest air.

After leaving the solace of the waterfall we continued to sweat our way uneventfully upwards through the nondescript forest, passing across occasional bushy, open areas and one huge avalanche path. This was an awesome sight when you considered the force that it must have taken to rip all these huge trees out of the ground and toss them about like so many toothpicks! Finally, about 3 hours after we started we arrived at the first open meadow where we stopped for a snack of gorp and energy bars and to replenish our water supply from the stream bisecting the meadow.

One of the many relatively tame Glacier Crevasses Around this time we noticed a hazy layer of cloud moving towards us from the East, perhaps announcing the advance of the predicted afternoon thunder storms, so we got underway again and continued steeply up the boot beaten path through the alpine shrubs and meadows. Finally we left the heather behind as we crossed over to the center rib of a snow filled gully and made our way up to the ridge separating us from the glacier. At this point I was seriously starting to bonk and Paul didn’t seem to be doing any better, so actually getting up to the ridge itself was a major effort.

Once on the ridge we were rewarded with views of the glacier and east face of Sloan. From this perspective I’m not quite sure how the mountain got the name the “The Matterhorn of the Cascades” because there is no resemblance! The glacier itself looked fairly benign in its present condition and Paul was not too happy about the fact the we had hauled rope, harnesses, and crampons all the way up for what looked as if it could be safely done with basic route finding and an ice axe, but since we had the gear I persuaded him to use it (except the crampons.) In the end his assessment of conditions was not far off and we had no problems crossing the glacier on a more or less ascending diagonal to the south end of the peak.

Mountain Goats on the South West Slopes Once on the south shoulder of the mountain, we ditched as much gear as possible beside a similar pile of gear left by a party of three ahead of us and continued to contour around the mountain in a clockwise direction (hence the name “Corkscrew” route). From here there was a clear path ascending the steep and occasionally slightly exposed heather slopes of the South West face. On our way up we scared a pair of mountain goats who were not as shy as most I’ve encountered in the past, only moving away when we got within a hundred feet of them.

The trail wound around onto the middle of the west face and then continued easily up a sandy and loose but low angle 2nd-3rd class gully where we waited for the other party to descend before pushing on. A few real class 3 moves brought us up onto the ridge crest. From there it was a short walk and scramble up to the base of the actual peak which again was easy 3rd class, but with several slightly harder and possibly more enjoyable variations. I was happy to pick one of these, as I felt somewhat let down by the totally lack of technical difficulty on the actual route up the peak. Its not that I can’t enjoy an easy peak, it’s just that after the numerous mundane difficulties of the approach, it just seemed anticlimactic to have the peak fall into our laps without a struggle! In any case, by at 4:45 pm we were on the summit, somewhat washed out by the hot and muggy air and the ~6000’ of elevation gain!

Paul nearing the Summit The clouds were now almost completely covering the sky, but fortunately they were high enough not to obscure our view and there was no sign of thunder or lightening happening anywhere. There were many rugged peaks to our west and south that I vowed to investigate further in the future, while across the North Fork of the Sauk river valley, Glacier Peak loomed like a sleeping giant. To the north we could make out Mt Baker and Shuksan and the only thing really missing in the whole panorama was Mt Rainer, most likely obscured in the clouds or haze.

After enjoying a leisurely half hour of rest and reading the summit register (other than the party who summitted ahead of us that day, no one had written anything since Oct 2003 – I’m SURE someone else has been up since then!) a few drops of rain and the desire to get down before dark had us reversing our route back down the mountain. Thankfully the rain held off on our descent and after climbing over more deadfall than you can count and briefly losing the trail in one bushy section, we arrived at the valley bottom faced only with the final creek crossing and bushwack. Paul opted for putting on his pants to fight off the bush while I created a new fashion trend by wearing my sandals with gaiters. Fortunately, this all went as well as possible and I was now successfully able to identify and avoid many of the patches of stinging nettle before I ran into them! FINALLY, hot, exhausted, and totally burned out, we arrive back at my Jeep just after 8 pm with daylight to spare! Talking about what particular brand of salty food we would devour (to replace all we'd sweated out) when we reached civilization kept us occupied on the long drive out.

Back to the trail head (It’s actually not dark quite yet!) Post Script: Well, as the saying goes, all’s well that ends well! This route has the potential to be a really fun (albeit a relatively strenuous) day out, but our bad start, the brooding heat and humidity of the day (I drank over 7 liters of water!!), the initially bushy section and the endless deadfall’s did take a little joy out of the whole process. Perhaps your experience will be different!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Details:

Date:   July 17, 2004   (1 day)
Participants: Brad Braun, Paul Raymond
Gear:  Hiking and Glacier Gear as appropriate to the time of year, conditions, and experience of party.
Rating: Grade II+, Class 2-3, 6000' (1825m) elevation gain, 12 miles (19 km) round trip, some Glacier Travel

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All Images Labeled PR Courtesy Paul Raymond