[TR] Robinson Mountain - Pasayten - SE Ridge 07/29/2023

[Bronco]

Trip: Robinson Mountain - Pasayten - SE Ridge

Trip Date: 07/29/2023

Trip Report:

Juan and I hadn’t gotten out much lately but decided to attempt an overnight attempt of Robinson Mountain.  This is the route description we had from WTA.org:

Turn right (northeast) on the unmarked Beauty Creek Trail and follow it for 1.5 miles, as it climbs somewhat steeply up the Beauty Creek valley, staying northwest of the creek. Just after crossing a major tributary of Beauty Creek, elevation 5260 feet, turn left (northwest) onto a climber’s trail that works up the steep meadow, then shallows into a secondary valley before steepening to reach a tarn, elevation 6750 feet.

From the tarn, it is a climber’s route, initially up the scree slope to the north and then 1.2 miles along the ridge over the false summits with a short class 2-3 knife edge climb shortly before the true summit.

Sounded pretty easy to us.  We left the trailhead at 8:30 am in relatively cool temps and were soon at the turn off for the Beauty Creek climber’s path at 2.8 miles from the Robinson Creek trailhead.  Some blowdown down low but the trail is in good shape for a climber’s trail.  Where the official trail ends in a meadow, we turned up the fall line.  We concluded the part of the route description for the Beauty Creek Trail that says “it climbs somewhat steeply” is accurate, it’s pretty steep but at least it was hot and dusty.  

View of Silver Star from the left turn up the hill to the tarn.

 

At this point we encountered an ancient looking solo climber descending.  He disclosed there is a really friendly marmot at the tarn where he had camped for 3 days.  He then went on to say the marmot really loved his urine. And then went on further to say how he really enjoyed his time with the marmot and the marmot would probably not be as friendly with us as he was with him.  We stared at him awkwardly and thanked him for this somewhat unsettling beta.  

Arriving at the 6,750’ tarn a little more than 4 hours after leaving the trailhead, we set up camp and took a rest in the shade.  Juan, (who turned 60! this year), decided we should go ahead and attempt the summit that afternoon instead of hanging around staring at the scree slope of doom.  

Juan at the top of the initial scree slope.

Around 3:00 we shouldered our packs and slogged up the scree to the SE ridge.  The route description at this point says: then 1.2 miles along the ridge over the false summits with a short class 2-3 knife edge climb shortly before the true summit. We were both a little surprised to find out our expectation of a nice Sound of Music ridge walk with occasional class 2-3 was not to be found.  The ridge is mostly class 2-3 with a fair amount of route finding.  At a couple of points I was certain we were climbing the summit only to see another one behind it, sometimes appearing faaarrrrrr behind.  We each later admitted to being close to pulling the plug on this attempt.

 

After 3 hours from leaving the tarn, and passing several false summits, we reached the actual summit.

Summit Block

Summit Selfie

Great light for photos this evening

 

We realized we didn’t have a ton of daylight left and still needed some dinner.  We quickly downclimbed and scree surfed back to camp by 8:00 pm, briefly stopping to chat with another solo climber who I accidentally dislodged a good sized rock above on the scree slope of doom that he successfully dodged.  He was planning to bivy on the ridge and we wished him a good evening.  Dinner was devoured quickly and two tired, middle aged/old guys promptly went to bed at 9:00, no sign of the overly friendly marmot.

The hike out on Sunday had a lazy pace, stopping to eat berries and Juan attempting to make friends with a small rattlesnake next to the trail that I wanted no part of.  We never did see a marmot at the tarn and suspect the old guy may have abducted it for continued companionship. 

We stopped for a quick meal at the Mazama Public house, Smoked Tri-Tip and Frites (steak and jo-jo's) hit the spot before a long drive home.

Gear Notes:
Helmets

Approach Notes:
Snakes, dust and heat

[JasonG]

Nice work guys!!

[Phil K]

I remember that scree slope of doom. Once over that it all seemed pretty fun, and the final scramble wasn't even too bad.

[Bronco]

I agree the climb wasn't too bad, we just sandbagged ourselves that it'd be an easy day that ended up being longer and harder than we assumed.