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Trip: High point of The Needles (AKA Big Methow Needle) plus the East Peak - Standard Trip Date: 08/02/2025 Trip Report: It seems to be that after 20 years you can repeat a peak and it is almost like you've never climbed it before. Almost. The memory of the character building approach in soft snow wasn't entirely forgotten when @Trent suggested the high point of the Needles (Top 200!) on a Saturday a few weeks back. I had last been up that way 23 years before with my friend Dennis and we had gone straight up from the highway/campground, traversing endless ribs and isothermic mush for a few short 5th class pitches. BUT, Steve had found a better way! Or, so I sincerely hoped, and so I found myself gearing up on the shoulder of 20 again, peering into the brush and looking for the faint hint of a trail @Eric Gilbertson had mentioned was in there. After some minimal thrashing indeed a halfway decent trail emerged, though downed logs were beginning to reclaim it slowly but surely. Things were looking better than I remembered and we continued up. Thankfully the valley thrashing is relatively short lived and the ascent up an open forest rib soon lifts one to views and cooling breezes. A couple hours slogging brought our first views of the Methow Needle, which was more impressive than I remembered. The views to Tower and Golden Horn were also much better than I remembered: Soon we were at the base of the climbing, racking up for 3 pitches of 4th/mid fifth class: @Trent took the sharp end first and launched up on the surprisingly steep first pitch, which was solid, if somewhat kitty litterish: A couple more rambly pitches brought to the lonesome summit, which really hasn't gotten much more popular since the register was placed in 1968. It was a much more entertaining read than most, and I especially enjoyed the firsthand accounts of FA by Pete Doorish and his partners many moons ago: We were definitely not worthy, but we were there, on the summit nonetheless: And the views, of course, were better than I remembered. Buckner, Boston, Sahale, Tower, Eldorado, Mesahchie, Katsuk, Kimtah (L-R): When I had last climbed it via the not recommended approach in less than ideal snow conditions, I was a young man and was still thoroughly whupped by the end of the day after just Big Methow Needle. This time, we were older and wiser and had some extra energy to head over to the East Peak of the Needles which afforded a grant view of the North side of The Needles, along with many ladybugs (visble at black specs in the photo of @Trent below): But, pleasant as it was up there, we couldn't stay forever and reluctantly had to descend back to the brush and blowdown to battle the masses back west across the pass. Still, a parting view of Big Methow Needle as we dropped to treeline was a good reminder that we have an exceptional backyard here in the North Cascades: Gear Notes: Light Rock rack to 2", 60m rope, helmet Approach Notes: Stay in the valley and find an old trail up Pine Creek on south side. Where it crosses to north side of creek follow for a bit longer into timber until it peters out and you head up via open forest to treeline and the peak.

Quite the effort @Lucas Ng! A lot of summits for a week human powered, those are all way back in there. So let me get this straight....somebody cut through all the avy debris on the Bacehlor creek trail?! That was pretty horrific just a few years ago (2022) when I last came through. I didn't think anyone would put in the effort to clear it ever since the USFS gave up decades ago.

During the past school year, I’d made the plan of doing a bike to climb trip this summer. Mainly due to the fact that it’s difficult to borrow a car from my parents for a while, but it also just seemed like a neat concept, and I was down for an adventure. After getting back from the North end of the ptarmigan traverse, I was inspired by the peaks further south. My partners were either out of commission or had came up with the lame excuse of “work” and “paying bills” so I figured I’d make it a solo trip. The peaks on the ptarmigan traverse made good sense for this since they’re usually 4th or low 5th making it a pain to bring rock gear. The only challenge was glaciers, but I hoped with my later-season climb they would be mostly dry. I was pretty lazy about prep so a late Saturday night found me and my brother binging a show. I woke up at the too-early time of 7am on Sunday and packed my bike before setting off at 10. Sunday 8/17 The first day was quite chill until I got to the centennial. At my first break on the centennial, I went for my phone when I realized my pannier pocket had been completely open and in a position to spill out the contents for the last hour while I’d been biking down a windy hill and over railroad tracks. I looked around but couldn’t find it so I asked a kind stranger to see if I could call my parents to find out the location. The man, Tom, ended up driving me back an hour of biking to the last known location but after a 1.5 hour ordeal, I came out empty handed. I figured I’d continue on with a garmin and stop by somewhere to get a map. Hour or so later, When I reached down in my frame bag for some snacks, I found it tucked behind some bike tools. The rest of the day went smoothly and I got into Darrington around 6 or 7 in time to get some food, buy groceries, and set up camp. Monday 8/18 As was the trend for the trip, monday was also a moderate day. I biked 30 miles to the trailhead and hiked up to itswoot ridge. The Downey/Bachelor creek trails are now well cut out. Always able to see your feet. At the Bachelor turn-off I ran into two climbers who were coming down from dome. Once I got to cub lake, I met a backpacker who had twisted his ankle a few days ago. An hour later I watched a helicopter come pick him up. I worked it up to Itswoot ridge where I went over to back the peak before setting camp at the established bivy sights to a nice view of dome and glacier. Tuesday 8/18 Trying to save phone battery and figuring the ptarmigan was obvious, I navigated the old fashion way. I knew that I had to climb through snowfields to the spire col so went to what I thought would be the obvious one. Once I was climbing the gully to the col, I found that it was much much looser than I had expected. Topping out, I realized I was definitely in the wrong place, I’d gone to the spire/west spire col. A shitty descent and some more vert later, I got to the right col. I scrambled up spire peak and enjoyed a mix of sun and clouds. TR’s had reported a licheny slab that wouldn’t be fun in approach shoes but it wasn’t too licheny anymore. From here I made the awful descent down to the basin where I traversed around to cub lakes. The only snow of the entire day was between the col and the base of the spire point. I got into cub lakes early and bagged 7340 and Lizard before heading to bed. Wednesday 8/20 The goal for the day was simple, Sentinel and Old Guard. The south cascade glacier was entirely dry and it was cool to see all the glacier monitoring equipment. I found a nice left leaning ramp up the West face of sentinel and scrambled to the top. With the sun and clouds there was a cool glory effect. I descended down, traversed over to the Leconte Glacier, and followed the dry glacier to the col. With some endrunning I was able to stay entirely on ice except for a large snow patch right before the col past the schrund. The scramble up was fun and I enjoyed good views of the more northern peaks. I descended back down and got back to camp by 4. Made some oatmeal and figured I’d scramble up old guard at 4:30. Made it from camp to the base of the North ridge in 45minutes before realizing that there may be some 5th class. It ended up being about 5.6 but it was a secure chimney so I felt comfortable. Made my way down by 6:30 where I found a deer at camp. Picked lots of berries alongside the deer before settling in for the night. Also lots of unfazed marmots. Thursday 8/21 Woke up to find my helmet 20 yards away from my tent. The marmots had stolen the foam padding from it. Spent the morning walking over to the dome-dana col. I went up and over to the itswoot ridge side since I didn’t want to solo the Dana glacier. Set up a nice camp before scoping out conditions. Figured it would probably be do-able but I wanted to do it in the early morning before sun hit everything and while snow conditions were firm. I was doing everything in approach shoes and hybrid crampons so steep stuff was not my forte. Listened to podcasts and sat around for the easy afternoon. That night was horrible, some mice disturbed me for two hours, eventually getting into my tent by making holes in the mosquito netting. My food was hanging but they still walked around by my feet. Didn’t get a ton of sleep. Friday 8/22 Started at 5am, picked my way up the glacier trying to stay on ice. Summited dome at 6:30, down by 7:30 before the sun had even hit camp. Figured I might as well make it down to the trailhead where I found myself at 2pm. Quickly packed the bike and headed towards darrington where I stopped to gorge myself at the burger place. Afterwards I hopped back on the bike in the 93 degree heat to bike to arlington where I camped in a park. This night also sucked too. Loud music + heat + my grimy body only gave me like 2 hours of sleep Saturday 8/23 I knew it’d get hot so I was moving as soon as it was light out, made it home in 5.5 hours where I showered and gorged myself. I’d been doing some moderate rationing for most of the trip so was, and still am, quite hungry. Overall it was a great trip to end the summer. I’ve got a oral surgery tomorrow that will put me out for 2 weeks and by then, I’ll be a week into the school-year. Been busy getting out recently but with this off-time, I’ll probably put together some mini-TR’s on my site(https://lucasfng.blogspot.com/). I’d been wanting to do a long trip over the summer so this satiated my hunger, though it would’ve been nice if I could've got more than one in.

Little J-Berg! Thanks to @John_Roper, @rat, and @lunger for getting me to peruse some images and revive this thread!

paging @dberdinka....

Also, I want the record to show that somehow when I was trying to edit the tags I accidentally rated this thread one star and I can't change it to 5! So, sorry @rat and @lunger if I'm ruining your Zagat FA rating.

And so it shall be in the Griffith house! Thanks for that bit of history @John_Roper, always fun to hear new details for the familiar vistas in our backyard.

https://www.thenewstribune.com/news/local/community/puyallup-herald/ph-news/article311802624.html

Hey! Life long Bellinghamster here who is in love with the Sisters Range. We went out to do the Green Creek Circ recently and heard some guides talking about Howard Tower. Well, we found Eifel Tower, but we have no idea where to find this Howard Tower, or what it looks like. We'd love to explore and climb more of what the Sisters has to offer us.

Noticed this at our meet up parking lot; Broughtons Bluff—

"The climbing is moderate, but generally solid and fun, with adequate protection." "We opted for the safer option" Nice job, BUT WHO ARE YOU GUYS and what did you do with Eric and Rolf???

This approach is an appetizer of nettles and other thorny shrubbery types that thoroughly enjoy tickling your ankles with utter abandon. The 5.4 on the super gorge classic corner is a splendid main course in prime conditions currently. Though we wondered if frozen moss would allow for less rope drag when pulling to rap? How old is the pin by the tree?

It's now over 20 years later; and I still don't regret the purchase of the Kelty Cloud (or my Hilleberg tent) and it's as durable as it was on day one though a bit dirtier. Sometimes good gear is good gear.

More meat left on that bone.

Hey did you end up finding anyone for this attempt? Short notice, but we just got shut down by the aftermath of the storm last week, and I'm chomping to find another opportunity to make it up there this season. Happy to discuss in more detail.

John, Yep, I saw that photo when looking for lines other than the first ascent. If the summit register is to be believed, the Plumb Line Buttress is probably the, in my flea-bitten opinion, less aesthetic buttress starting from the right edge of the leftmost snow patch. We initially had our sights on the thinner rib west of our central buttress but there appeared to be a section of rot where it first gets steep and another below the top so we opted for the safer option. It's anyone's guess where Roger Jung went but I wouldn't be surprised if he climbed roughly the same line as us. I would call ours a "possible" rather than "probable" first ascent. To add to Eric's list of stats: We took about 6 hours on the route but that's 'cause one of us is "old and in the way".

John Porter has a nice sunlit shot of the whole north face here.

HAHAHAHA, how true. I already want to go check it out. Thanks for the post!

Sent you a DM - I’m always looking for partners as well.

Access to MRNP just got worse. (For Pierce County residents.) https://mynorthwest.com/chokepoints/sr-410-white-river-bridge/4121822

There was a guide a few decades ago that was planning to open this traverse up as a guided outing. It didn’t happen however. I just came across this bit: https://www.kcaw.org/2017/11/17/sitka-hikers-wrap-epic-six-year-baranof-island-trek/

A moment ago I was searching here for anyone possibly climbing with POTS. I have 4 kids now; the 2 oldest most likely have POTS; one of our 4 year old twins survived two open heart surgeries in her first two years of life; both at UCSF Benioff—the best pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeon Dr Reddy is down there. But back to POTS; found something somewhere else so, I figured I’d drop it here: https://blog.weighmyrack.com/how-to-climb-with-pots/ Anyone here have kids with POTS that go out in the woods hiking or climbing?

Thanks for the clarification, John @John_Roper -- I've seen it variously referred to with the -burg, the -berg, the full name with either an e or a u, and sometimes the hyphenate J-. Presumably the playful J-berg is truncated to make clear it's a smaller version of the real deal, and refers to a mountain and not a city? Anyway, now we know, J-berg! Fixed it in the title, etc.

I have been gone from the area for over 20 years now. But I never thought that this would happen in my lifetime. Rather melancholy about that now.