Trip: The north summit of
Greenwood Mountain isn't
Date: 8/5/2007
Trip Report:Background:This report is not intended to debate the name of this mountain. I call it
Greenwood Mountain. You can call it what you want. Some (many?) call it NE Dumbell Mountain--a prosaic name if there ever was one. It isn't officially named on the map. According to Beckey, local miners called the peak "
Greenwood Mountain" and that is where the name comes from (obviously, take your Beckeyisms with a grain of salt). Either way, this mountain is a Top 100 summit.
There are two summits on
Greenwood Mountain: a southern point triangulated at 8,415 ft and a northern point about 300 yards away triangulated at 8,400+ ft (meaning it could on casual consideration be as high as 8,439 ft, thus higher than the south summit). Most Top 100 pursuers, including the original Bulgers, were content on only doing the south summit. But if the north summit were actually higher, one could argue that those who only did the south summit were "cheating" the honor of completion.
A photo from earlier this decade...
Knowing just which of the two summit points is highest has fascinated me ever since I read Beckey's words regarding the peak
"...but apparently higher at its northern tip." Further piquing my intrigue was Mike Torok after a return trip up there in 2004. He stated that the north summit is
"higher by a couple of feet." (
reference) But then Fay Pullen went up to the south summit with her fancy little clinometer and measured a downward angle to the north summit, meaning it is lower. However, she did not do a back bearing from the north to south summit. Furthermore, what effect would earth curvature have on her reading? I originally climbed to the south summit in August 2003 with Stefan Feller. Neither of us could say with certainty which summit was higher. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to visit the north summit too. Given all of the above, I knew I would need to return to
Greenwood to make some sort of measurement or measurements of my own.
Results:On the weekend of August 4-5, 2007 I traveled with my girlfriend Michelle up to Spider Meadow. While she stayed in camp and endured hungry black flies and mosquitos, I went on up to
Greenwood. I was at the summit from Phelps Basin in a little under three hours. The weather was partly cloudy.
{Excuse the poor quality. We realized we forgot the memory card in the camera and so rushed back to the nearest store at Lake Wenatchee to purchase a disposable camera.}
I was carrying with me my old Casio altimeter with 20-ft increments, a new High Gear altimeter with 1-ft increments (though it's not
that accurate), and a medium quality Magellan GPS. I was first surprised to see the GPS report exactly 8415 feet for the south summit with an accuracy of 13 feet. It fluctuated a little with a minimum reading of 8413 and a maximum of 8418. 11 satellites were used to acquire my position. I reset my Casio to the nearest setting of 8420 ft. I reset my High Gear to 8415 ft.
After a short stay at the south summit I downclimbed its SE Ridge to get to the obvious, though somewhat inaccessible looking ramp that leads down to the glacier/snow on the east side of the peak. The ridge is mostly Class 3 but features two short Class 4 steps with good holds. After descending to about 8160 ft, I located a chossy 25-ft gully leading down to the finger of snow (with attendant moat) reaching up on the ramp. This gully is at a point on the ridge where continuing on it would be difficult (it's right before a small cannonhole).
There were old boot tracks in the snow leading over to the north summit. After climbing down the gully and out of the moat, I more or less followed those tracks to the base of the south face of the north summit.
The snow reaches up a bit and steepens. To make matters worse there was a double moat, one a bit back from the face (like a schrund) below the steepest snow (don't slide into it!) and one at the snow high point. I got off the snow rather easily across a two-foot chasm then sketched my way up ball-bearing-covered slabs. I worked rightward past/under where a big block of snow had slid off moments before then made my way up to the final SE Ridge. The ridge was Class 3--not difficult at all. For the return I would take a narrow ramp/gully that avoided the unpleasant slabs. It took me about an hour to get from the south summit to the north summit.
At the north summit I again pulled out my instruments.
The GPS now read 8410 feet with only minor fluctuations. The accuracy was +/-8 feet. 14 satellites were used to acquire my position. The High Gear altimeter also read lower by about 15 feet. My Casio read the same height (8420 ft).
I returned to the south summit and the GPS again read 8415 ft (now settling out to 8418, actually). The High Gear altimeter was also again reading about 8415 ft.
Conclusion:Two independent experiments (Fay's and mine) showed that the north summit is lower than the south summit. Two casual comments (Fred's and Mike's) intimated the north summit was higher than the south. I'm going to go with the quantitative data and aver that THE SOUTH SUMMIT OF
GREENWOOD MOUNTAIN IS THE HIGHEST POINT. There is no need to go over to the north summit except for the better views it provides of Bonanza Peak, Martin Peak, and the Railroad Creek valley.
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