Lewis Peak Trip Report

[catbirdseat]

Paul Klenke and I climbed Lewis Peak today. We made it to the summit and back in one piece, more or less. Paul wanted to do the trip report, but he got poked in the eye with a branch and it was bothering him a lot. I told him to go home and go to bed. I am sure the eye will feel better in the morning. He promises to write a detailed report then. Suffice it to say that it was very wet and very brushy.

[klenke]

TR: Lewis Peak (5,608-ft north summit of Del Campo Peak)

 

Short Version: Ugh!

 

Long Version: Brian (Catbirdseat) and I went to go climb Lewis Peak yesterday. I wanted to take a look at the Northwest Ridge route as possibly a good winter climb in the case that avalanche dangers were considerable elsewhere. The route was believed to follow the crest of the ridge all the way, thus making it a good candidate.

 

Brian and I got to the trailhead with no problems. We even stopped on the Sunrise Mine Road briefly to get a picture of the NW Ridge of Lewis. A very light drizzle was coming down. There was very little snow on the ground at 2,300 ft. We left Brian's truck at 8:27:30AM. It had also stopped raining. Initially, we had intended to take a left into cross-country terrain from the trail at the first stream crossing (the one with the old foot bridge), but we wound up doing this at the second stream crossing a few hundred yards farther along. Somehow, though we were now off-trail, we wound up back on the trail and shortly walked right over a ruined Manley's Cabin. I would not have even known it was an old building unless Brian had pointed it out. From somewhere not too far beyond the cabin we made our way up the forested hillside hoping that we had not gone too far up the valley between Morning Star and Lewis peaks before cutting uphill. We knew that the west side of Lewis is very slabby. Luckily, we were able to find a semi-forested BW2 (sometimes BW3) route between slabs up to the ridgeline, whereupon we crested it at about 3,200 ft of elevation. We were following fluorescent tagging, so knew we weren't the first to go this way. After a short break, we continued on. Still, only intermittent snow patches. It was mostly snow-free (but by no means dry) BW1 and BW2.

 

At around 4,000 ft, we came to a good viewpoint of the destination mountain and the sharpening ridge ahead of us. Furthermore, a perpetual bright spot in the clouds to the southeast opened up to a full-blown sucker hole. This really got our adrenalin flowing. Before long, we found ourselves at what we supposed to be the notch where one of Brian's friends got turned back. This is at 4,200 ft on the ridge. From there, I even managed a snapshot of Lewis and Del Campo peaks. The notch is not really a "notch" in the usual sense of the word, but a depression in the ridge crest with an easy slope on the northwest side and a brushy set of crags on the southeast side. We lightened our packs of the snowshoes we were not using (the snow was too soft and the terrain too variable and steep to make them useful) and continued on.

 

In winter conditions (and probably even in summer conditions), climbing directly over the crag(s) on the southeast side of the notch would be very sketchy class 4/5. What we did was descend ten or twenty feet to the west side of these crags (where I would see the last piece of tagging on the way up). We initially scrambled around the corner of a vegetated and treed rock outcropping but could not find a way down or across the other side (slabby canyon), so instead we had to scramble back left on sketchy class 4 terrain complete with loose green belays and even looser rocks. Lo and behold, in going this way, Brian stumbled upon a rappel sling around a tree. We said we'd use that on the way back since we had brought my 30m rope.

 

From the rappel sling, the going was easy semi-forested traversing usually just below the crest for about 300 yards until we got to another cliffy section. Because snow cover was lame, we could not ascend a prominent gully (a crack in the snow at a step prevented access upward). Instead, we had to descend westward (on snow-covered slabs, I presume) about 100 vertical feet until we could find a way to mount the next rock rib south of us. Once we managed this, we found ourselves on a lot more forgiving terrain. That would be the last of the rocky sections. From here, at approximately 4,300 ft, it would be a tiring slog up very wet snow all the way to the top. Brian said he could smell my summit fever. We made an angling ascent back to the ridge crest then more or less followed it whenever the tiny cornices allowed this. We tried our best to avoid the holes around the stunted trees, but still wound up post-holing a lot. Man was that snow wet and soft! Safe, but wet and tiring. It would be easy to self-arrest in, but there's no way you'd keep your feet dry.

 

At about this time, my right gator strap came unbuckled (that's never happened before), but I kept on going just the same. My feet were already swimming anyway, so what's a little more water? Also, did I mention that the weather had begun to deteriorate?

 

We made the now-foggy summit at 2:00PM at right about our designated turn-around time. The summit was pretty nondescript. I think we only knew we were there because we came upon a small cairn at the northern end of a long, flat crest. (I dug briefly around the cairn for a register but could not locate one.) This crest had small cornices built up on its entire east side. We weren't on the summit very long before it started to rain, lightly at first but steadily harder as the day wore on.

 

Oddity: after having a problem with my right gator strap, what should happen? Well, Brian's right gator strap decides to break completely. But he said he'd bear it until we got back to our gear stash beyond the notch. In no time we were back to the rappel station making quick work of the 50-foot rappel (perfect for my 30m rope). Brian's legs were cramping, but up to this point I was unscathed.

 

After Brian repaired his gator, we set out from our stash for the remaining ¾-miles and 1,900 feet of descent at around 4:00PM. It was somewhere on the ridge where Brian made a spectacular tumble down some brush and over a rock bulge (he was not hurt) that I got whacked in the left eye by a brush branch while doing a leap. [My eye is really bugging me now as I write this. It hurts when I blink, even when I keep it closed because blinking the right eye still means your left eye twitches in unison.] We wanted to stay on the Northwest Ridge all the way back to its broad terminus, but somehow still managed to get off of it unwittingly. The ridge sort of compels you to drift off to the west. At any rate, we found ourselves descending more or less off the ridge where we came up--right toward unseen slabs below? The terrain was varied in the last shards of daylight, but mostly it was manageable. Only a few steep sections concerned us momentarily before we would find a way down. However, right as it got almost completely dark, we came to a 50+ foot cliff with un-downclimbable slabs to either side. We thought we might have to rappel the cliff, but I was leery of our short rope being able to make it all the way down to safety...in a pouring down rain, no less. Luckily, I spied a way to climb up and around and down the other side of the slab to our left, and this is what we did.

 

In another few minutes, we had found the trail. And in another few minutes after that, we had found the truck. And in another few minutes we had found the dry clothes. And in another few minutes we had found the Heineken and the hot tea. And in another few minutes we had found the Mountain View Inn for some well-deserved grub. I tried to eat while struggling with my scratched eyeball. Plus, the tearing up of my eye seemed to be making the mucous/tears flow freely out of my left nostril. Lame. [This is still the case right now.] Times: 5-1/2 hours up, 15 minutes at the summit, 3-3/4 hours down.

 

Forgive me if this TR is uninspiring or too long. It's hard to write when you've only got one eye open.

 

[catbirdseat]

Lessons learned by catbirdseat:

1) Better be in shape if you want to hang with klenke

2) If you scramble with klenke, better put everything IN your pack, because there's brush in your future.

3) It doesn't matter how good is your gear- your boots are going to fill up with water. Learn to live with it.

4) Helmets are good on 3rd class deproaches when you are going downhill in the dark in the rain and blindly stepping on slippery branches.

[JoshK]

Hey guys, glad to here you made it! It actually sounds like it was quite fun in an...interesting, sort of way.

[catbirdseat]

It was fun compared to staying at home and sitting around. That's for sure. Josh, we could have used you out front kicking steps!

[Stefan]

I realize you had cornices on the east side with deteriorating weather, but did you guys ever get a look at the NE ridge?????

[klenke]

Stefan,

I should have the few shots I took back from Kit's Cameras tomorrow around noon. I'll send you the relevant shot(s) of the NE Ridge.

 

Here's what I suspect will be the case for that approach:

Provided an approach (say from Barlow Pass) goes without problems all the way to the 4,000+ ft saddle NNE of Lewis Peak, you can then expect a steep rocky area that looks circumnavigable on the north side up a steep semi-timbered slope. Looking at my topo, this rocky area looks even more feasible to climb around on the southeast side, but we could not see that from our vantage. This rocky area can be seen on the topo as the pronounced nub just right of the 4800 contour label north of the peak. Once around that initial rocky area, you will come to a flat area directly beneath the summit by about 200 vertical feet. If you look at Green Beckey [for me, the photo in the 1989 printing on page 57 focusing on Del Campo Peak but with Lewis on the right], you can see some pics of Lewis' east side. You'll see a headwall kind of thing. This is what I'd expect you to run up against coming from the northeast. This headwall extends partway down the NW Ridge (at least down to 4,200 ft), but there may be a way up it. You cannot see this extended part in the photo in Beckey. You can also see the first rocky area I spoke of with the flat area on top on the far right side of the photo. As for seeing it ourselves, we could not directly see the east cliff of the summit area, but there were cornices all along the crest. These cornices would certainly pose an avalanche hazard for a winter/spring climb up that cliff.

 

What you need is a good picture looking northwest toward Lewis from Silver Tip Peak.

 

The picture(s) I took will help you with this determination. I'll just need to scan them and send them to you.

 

---Paul

[Stefan]

I see exactly what you are talking about. I will wait for the pictures. Thanks for the beta.

[nolanr]

Viva la Cascades!

[klenke]

I don't have a URL to link to, so I have attached a photo of the north side of Lewis Peak to this post (see above). The photo was taken from approximately 4,200 ft at the northwest side of the notch mentioned in the TR.