Mt. Pershing

[AJScott]

Went up Pershing on the 18th with my friend Rod. I climbed Pershing solo last year around this time, and dont remember the bushwacking being quite so bad. I guess I tend to suppress bad memories. Once the bushwacking was over with, there was a small amount of snow to cross before the final gully to the summit ridge. The ridge to the summit is really fun easy climbing on large slabs.

 

 

goofin around towards the summit with sawtooth's in da backdrop

 

 

Summit photo with Stone.

 

 

Two from the descent:

 

 

 

9hrs. rt. The roads are in great shape right now, looks like they have seen some recent work.

[dkemp]

Cool

[Tweezer]

How obvious is the trail head from the raod? Im planning on tagging this on on saturday or sunday.How exactly did you acend the summit block? Any info on how to find please share. Thanks Todd

Edited September 2, 2004 by Tweezer

[CPOly]

The trailhead isn't too obvious, but it's pretty easy to find. I assume you're approaching from the Jefferson Creek side. The description in the climbers guide is pretty right on at least to the trailhead. Follow road 2401 for about 2.5 miles past Jefferson Lakes and about .2 miles past the intersection with road 100 which will be on your left. Park at a little pullout on the left side of the road before you cross Jefferson Creek at the corner where the road cuts back to the right away from the north side of Mt. Washington. I believe that there is somewhat of a pond or standing water visible from where you park on the west side of the road. One trail starts out a little brushy on the south side of the creek. I think that there might be somewhat of another trail that starts from the north side of the creek also. Either way follow a trail up the valley staying at times in open forest to avoid brushy areas. I hope this gets you started. Good luck and have fun.

[AJScott]

pershing is an adventure...best to left the unknown-unknown It took me two try's to make it up there...and its great making it up there...lots of "trail" finding

[bremerton_john]

Gabiot and I ran up Pershing in 3.5 hours this past Sunday, and made it that fast primarily because I know the way through the brush fairly well now. If you start out on the north side of the creek, someone has flagged (faded orange stuff) the entire way to the open basin at 4300 feet. The only trouble is that someone else has been in there earlier this year and added even more flagging (the bright red stuff), particularly around the boulder field down low. This new flagging is all over the place and is particularly screwy on the descent. On the way in, just work your way through the open woods until you reach the obvious avalanche clearing within the vine maple thicket. Just before this thicket is where the trail turns right and heads steeply up the hillside within the open woods, not the heavy brush. Once you've gone up a ways, it will take you through a section of slide alder, finally breaking out into the basin at 4300 feet. Scramble up the slabby rock directly in front to the snow patch below the summit ridge. You can head directly for the summit and find some fairly easy scrambling to gain the ridge, or the more fun route is to head to the far left side of the ridge and go up one of the gullys (the one with the dead tree at the top is a good one). Gain the ridge here and it makes for a real fun ridge walk like the photos above to the summit.

 

As for the flagging, it would be just as well if it was torn out at some point in the near future. The route is starting to see enough traffic that there is a beaten trail for most of the way.

 

Incidentally, it took us almost 6 hours to get up a couple years ago, partially because of a large group, but primarily because we were slogging through brush most of the way.

[Tweezer]

thanks alot for all of your help. Im really looking ford to this one. todd

[AJScott]

jeez, we hardly saw any flags. But I must admit, I have a lot of practice at staying off route. I usually get to where I am trying to go, but I have an amazing ability of taking the worst way possible. Some people have a built in compass...I have one that directs me towards wet gullies full of devilsclub, and hot exposed slopes filled with slide alder.

[bremerton_john]

Saw no flags, eh? Wow, you guys must be drawn to the worst routes!

 

You hiked in on the south side of the creek? Where do you eventually cross over and head up the hill?

[AJScott]

we did see a couple flags here and there just exaggerating... we were mainly off route from the dried up lake to the headwall that leads up to the upper meadow...when i was up there last year...I found it just fine (on my second attempt) and when I was up there with rod...nothing looked the same from the dried up lake...we didnt stay in the woods enough. ohh well...next time.

[bremerton_john]

Yeah, you really got to stay in the open woods to the right of the clearing as much as possible. Those weeds (vine maple thickets) will getcha real bad.

[heatmiser]

 

Is the route being discussed here Route 1 or Route 2 from the climbers guide? I'm thinking about making my second attempt on Pershing in the next couple of weeks. It sounds like the Jefferson Creek road approach is the main route. The information here is helpful, but any other advice would be welcome. Also, how tough is the rock at the top? It sounds like moderate Class 3 with a little exposure. How does it compare to say, Mt. Stone, The Brothers, Mt. Lincoln (Route 1)?

I tried Pershing Route 4, approaching via Mildred Lakes Trail, a couple of weeks ago and got off-route after some nasty bushwacking through lots of those unpleasant "gullies full of devilsclub, and hot exposed slopes filled with slide alder" that AJScott described. My partner and I turned back after getting uncomfortable with a long stretch of steep, exposed, loose rock on our ill-chosen route. We also wanted to avoid bushwacking in the dark. The Route 4 description in the guide made the route sound more straightforward, with no mention of the brutal brush — although I did expect some jungle travel. Instead the guide says "Leave the trail and climb SE over scree..." I knew I wouldn't be hitting scree at 3,000 feet, but geez, it took over an hour of steep brush-beating to get out of the trees.

 

Thanks

[bremerton_john]

The route that I've described here and in earlier posts is actually closest related to route 7 in the book. The description therein is mostly good, though somewhat vague towards the top. The route is moderate class 3, with only very short sections of rock, except for the hilly vegetated slab of rock immediately in front of you when you finally come out of the brush at 4300 feet elevation (the book calls it the 4000 foot basin, however I've checked the elevation twice - but whatever). You can avoid this hilly slab by a rightward detour, but it isn't real obvious unless seen from the top. The rock difficulty is on par with Stone and maybe slightly more challenging than the South Brother.

 

As far as brush, I don't know of any way to climb Pershing without dealing with some brush. However, if you can find the on again, off again trail that stays in the open woods, you will avoid the worst of it.

[Tweezer]

Made it to the top in 3.5hrs. flags were everywhere. Its as if 4 different people flagged their own rout up.There would be a flag every 10ft and then they just stop all together. Confusing as hell on the way down. On the way down we went too far andended up following a flagged routenear the creek but there was no trail at all. Pure bush wacking. Other than that and the 2 bee nests we walked over a great climb. Awesome ridge!!!!!!Plus we saw some kind of cat in a cave near the bottom in the open woods. Didnt get a good look at him but he had BIG green eyes. Thanks for the help John and i agree the majority of the flags should be ripped out! And thankyou joel for taking all the bee stings.

Stay in the open woods as long as possible. We hit a few sections of class 4 but i think we were off route. The ridge isnt higer than a 3 but it is very thin and exposed. I would say at least 500 ft vert drop either way. I though Pershing was definetly more challenging than stone.There were some awesome rapel spots as well. Good luck!

[bremerton_john]

Yep, you definitely experienced Pershing! The bee stings make it the full package, eh? I was shocked last week that we didn't find any.

 

Fun climb though, eh? By the way, we saw your name on the summit register of Stone.

[heatmiser]

 

Thanks for the advice, guys. Now if only the weather would cooperate for a couple of days....