[TR] South Twin, Jaw's Tooth, Skookum (Kloke), Little Sister, Cinderella - Green Creek Circuit 06/30/2019

[geosean]

Trip: South Twin, Jaw's Tooth, Skookum (Kloke), Little Sister, Cinderella - Green Creek Circuit

Trip Date: 06/30/2019

Trip Report:

Me and Dylan climbed the Green Creek Circuit per the "Cascades Rock" guide: Green Creek Arete to South Twin, NW Face of Jaw's Tooth, NE Ridge of Skookum, central arete on the NW face of Little Sister, then the west ridge of Cinderella.

It was amazing.

Lots of fun mostly easy travel on varied terrain with soloing, simul-climbing, downclimbing, snow, loose gullies. My kind mountaineering and classic Cascades style.

I would say that the left arete on Little Sister might be better due to a section of scary detached blocks on the right one that we climbed. On the left one you would get more ridge scrambling which was amazing.

14.5 hours car-to-car, 7800', 13.4 miles.

 

More terrain to be explored past Cinderella at left:

 

Dylan on the final scramble to Cinderella:

 

Looking back up Green Creek after a great day:

 

Dylan in the upper Green Creek basin:

 

Dylan eschewed my offer of a trekking pole in favor of looking like a doofus crossing the Middle Fork:

Gear Notes:
30m rope got us off Jaw's Tooth with some easy downclimbing and was perfect for simul-climbing axe small rack

Approach Notes:
Per Darin, the Forest Service has actually cleaned up their part of the trail and it is getting moderate use to Elbow Lake.

[thedylan]

Nice, thanks for posting Sean. Such a fun backyard playground.

I would add that we found a way more fun way up the green creek arete than what I have done previously (if you follow the actual line of the arete there is a lot of hiking). We started maybe 30 feet left of the gully going up to mythic wall on probable looking 4th/low 5th and went straight up, trending left slightly to avoid the real steeps. Hit the proper arete a little below where it flattens/where the mythic wall tops out.

The true summit of the green creek arete:

Skookum:

Low on Little Sister:

High on Little Sister:

Cinderella:

Green creek basin:

Edited July 3, 2019 by thedylan

[dberdinka]

So looks like no log for a river crossing?  I don’t feel like I’ve ever seen it in wadeable condition.

The couple people I know who have done the central arete raved about it, but with multiple options the choss had to be somewhere.  The left arete was a little too easy,  I still need to get back in there for the central.    

[thedylan]

I think?

Doable but attention getting. Would have been worse if the blocks were made of gneiss like they usually are :-D. Moving onto the slabby north side of the arete down lower may have been the thing to do, seems to be where the solid rock is in this section of the range.

Update: noticed this in another TR. I think we tackled the referenced bulge head-on.

Quote

Surprisingly good 5.4ish up and sometimes left of a little corner system, stepping left onto a beautiful, highly featured and varnished slab to bypass a small bulge, leading to class 3 up the rib to the summit.

 

Edited September 19, 2019 by thedylan

[thedylan]

1 hour ago, dberdinka said:

So looks like no log for a river crossing?

Just that log you see in Sean's last photo which someone tied to the big concrete block. Gets you most of the way but still took our shoes off on the way in.