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Ian and I left at 1am from Wenatchee to bag our 2nd peak on the “WA Difficult 10” list. We were initially thinking of attempting the Index traverse, but there is too much snow and we only had Sunday 5/12/24 available. At around 5pm on Sat, I suggested switching objectives and Ian immediately texted back that he was in. Spontaneity is one of the many reasons he is an excellent climbing partner. The drive took over 5hrs due to McDonalds stop in Burlington waiting for a Burger (no breakfast before 4am ). We arrived at the top of the last switchback on NF-38 and started hiking around 5:45am after a prolonged decision making process whether we should take skis or not. We finally decided to take them since it would save time on the descent. We moved slowly but surely up the overgrown trail, moving alder branches out of the way and ducking our skis underneath. We reached the open plateau at 5,000’ around 7am. From there it was a quick skin up to 6,000’ where we stopped for breakfast. The summit looked so close from our break-spot that I was convinced we’d be home by 6pm or so. Conditions looked optimal, with hardly any crevasses exposed. We ditched skis at camp after briefly debating whether we could ski the route from the summit. At 8:45 we started the short traverse over to the bowl that funnels into the couloir system leading to the summit. The snow was knee deep and we took turns breaking trail, but still expended a ton of energy in the first part of the ascent. This route is South-West facing, and didn’t see sun until around 11:30. This helped negate most of the rockfall risk, but it was still warm enough that the snow remained mostly slushy except in the runnels. Another thing that didn’t help was our underestimating the length of the route from camp. 3,000’ of steep snow is a solid day’s work, and it took us until 1pm to reach the summit. The top is in view for most of the route, and just seemed to keep getting farther and farther away as we got higher. The route, however, kept looking easier and easier as we got closer. At around 7,000’ we ditched trekking poles, the rope, and our pro as we were confident we could solo the gullies all the way to the top. After another few hundred feet, we crossed a bergshrund (barely visible to us) and continued slogging up the first gully. At around 7,800’ we stopped and took a lunch break and melted a liter of water each. This is when I realized I had accidentally grabbed a nearly empty fuel canister, and had used it all the fuel that remained in one sitting. Bummer. We continued up from our lunch spot traversing over to the second gully. Same slushy snow. The sun finally crested the ridge above us and immediately started beating down. We moved slowly due to the snow conditions and heat, but kept moving until we topped out the second gully and traversed left into the final gully. Ian and I parted ways, as he took the standard gully on the left, while I took a shaded gully on the right that was a bit steeper but seemed more solid. We met up 20min or so later just under the summit, where I had to scoot across a snow ridge with thousands of feet of exposure on each side. Lesson learned: stick to the gpx track. We arrived on top, took photos and some drone footage, then started the backwards down-climbing/postholing. The descent was quite miserable. It was so hot that I was getting sunburned despite 70 spf sunscreen. The snow was so wet and slushy that we got completely soaked. It took only two hours to get back to our skis, but it was not enjoyable. From there, we plowed through the slush down into the trees, where we eventually decided it was faster to just posthole since the trees were so close together. We reached the old forest road/trail around 4pm, then skinned and walked back the way we had come up back to Ian’s car. We started the drive home around 5:30pm and arrived home just before 10pm. Overall, we were not terribly impressed with this climb. It is not very technical, nor aesthetic, and the views were nothing spectacular. I’m glad we got it checked off, but this one really is just a check mark. GPX Track: https://www.alltrails.com/explore/recording/lincoln-peak-x-couloir-040d45c Gear List: https://www.packwizard.com/s/Vjgacgh Video:

My dream climb! I wondered if it was even doable nowadays after The Smiley Project showed it deteriorating severely some ten or fifteen years ago. Thanks for sharing your trip with a now-62 year old guy who will likely miss this one in person. 🙂