[TR] Wedge Mountain- NW Ridge 7/5/2005

[rbwen]

Climb: Wedge Mountain-NW Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 7/5/2005

 

Trip Report:

It was a beautiful day on the eastside with temps. slated to be in the mid-nineties. A great day to lounge by the pool...wait...I mean get into the mountains. We took the ten-year old nephew and our 75 Scrambles in Washington by Peggy Goldman book and headed out. Five miles from Peshastin on Blewitt Pass we started up the logging roads for about half an hour. A little hunting and lots of brush scraping the bottom of the Subaru brought us to the trailhead. The old two lane turns into a very nice trail about 1/4 mile in and continues up for about 2.5 - 3 miles to the summit. Along the way the highlights included a pretty nice campsite after about a mile, a quick 1/4 mile diversion to an old, collapsing cabin off on a side trail to the northeast of the campsite, great views between the false summit and actual summit of Snow Lakes, Little Annapurna, McClellan? (or McCullough), The Enchantments, Nada Lake. From the saddle the nephew had had enough and I scrambled up the final five hundred feet or so to the summit while my wife waited with him. Their is some minor scrambling for the final 50 feet to the top, mostly fourth class (which you could probably avoid but I was in a hurry and not doing the best route finding). From the top I could see Rainier, Adams, and all of Wenatchee Valley. Very beautiful. The route description in the book said it was a humbling view and it was indeed. I ran back to my waiting partners and we took our time heading back down, basking in the warm sun, recounting all of the memories coming back up. We brought a flora/fauna book for the first time and it was great. I learned more about mountain flowers, butterflies, mushrooms, and trees than any class I've ever taken in school (and I'm a teacher!). I highly recommend getting one of these if you don't already because it makes the whole trip more enjoyable and is a great diversion for a ten-year old kid who's sick of walking up hill.

 

Gear Notes:

Camelback

Flora/Fauna book

Tennis shoes

 

Approach Notes:

The road in is a little bit tricky to follow. We stayed on the main logging roads most of the way until about 4,100 feet when we were given the choice of left or right. Since the book said to stay mainly to the left on the roads that's the one we took and it was right. Some of the upper roads are a bit brushy on the sides and down the middle but our Subaru wagon did just fine, scraping bottom on the brush and the occasional rock but no worse for the wear. The trail itself was in great shape, a bit sandy and blownout in places but still very nice. Our one confusing place was at the campground. If you want to go to the cabin stay left for 1/4 mile through the meadow. If you want to gain the ridge go straight through the campground and head up through the woods. The book is a bit confusing in that regard. Also, there are a few false summits when you're in the saddle so don't make any promised to ten-year old kids that you'll be back in fifteen to twenty minutes because you can see the summit.