gunsight peak / dome peak TR

[forrest_m]

Over the long weekend, Dan Aylward, Chris Fast and I climbed Gunsight Peak, tagging the summit of Dome on the way. It was a bit of a grudge match for Chris and I, since two years ago on the 4th weekend, we got 18" of snow after the approach. We didn't see a single other person in four days, though we saw tracks in the snow.

 

Day 1 - we hiked into the small valley at the head of Bachelor Creek. We can add some confirmation to the warnings already posted about avalanche debris. We eventually determined that the avalanche had started high up on Itswoot Peak, swept down into the small cross valley at the head of Bachelor Creek, gone up the other side and launched off the lip, leaving a small strip of trees untouched where it had gone airborne before pummeling into the slope of old growth below, taking out every tree for around 3/4 mile down valley (maybe 800 vertical feet?) As the valley turned, the slide had banked up the sides, slicing off trees several feet in diameter as neatly as a hairdresser with electric shears. “A number 2 clipper cut on Bachelor Creek, a little longer on the sides, please.”

 

We found the remnants of the trail climbing up one side; when that disappeared, we crossed carefully to a island in the middle of the flow, then followed a snow remnant as far as we could before attacking the headwall directly up the steepest slope where the avalanche had scoured the entire slope down to bare dirt. It took us about 2 hours to get from the base to the top of the slide.

 

Day 2 - We hiked over the ridge, down to Cub Lake, then over Itswoot ridge and around the valley up to the Dome Glacier Flats, where we made camp. We headed up to scope out the Dome-Chickamin col crossing, then scrambled to the summit of dome to enjoy the sunset from the exact center of the north cascades.

 

Day 3 - back over the col, then the long descent into the chickamin and back up to the base of Gunsight. We wanted to try the Nelson/deitrich west face route and started up what we though was the first pitch. This took a long time, since it was sparsely protected 5.9, not 5.7. The next pitch blanked out; we found an old bail sling. Were we off route or did we just need bigger balls? Guess we'll never know. We bailed, and headed up a line a few hundred feet leftwards, reaching the north ridge in 2 fun pitches and the summit 4 more pitches up the ridgeline. Very solid rock, 5.8ish but not terribly sustained.

 

From the summit, a single rope rappel gets you down to the notch between the two peaks. From there you can down climb most of the way to the snow, angling skiers left when you can to find an obvious rap station. A single rope rappel isn't quite long enough here, though if you only had one rope I'm sure you could find an intermediate station. We glissaded down to the Chickamin Glacier and started the long slog back up dome peak in the sunset, arriving at our camp at 11 pm.

 

Day 4 - It took us about 9 hours to hike out to the car.

[Dru]

wow i didnt know jim nelson knew marlene deitrich

[forrest_m]

yes, didn't you know? RURP is their love child.

[Dave_Schuldt]

I that the Criss Fast that used to work at ABC Legal Mesengers?

[robertm]

It was the East Face of the main peak... big rockfall (like 1/4 of the face). We did this same trip last year and also didn't run into any crowds. Here are some pics from the area:

Dome Peak Pictures

[wotan_of_ballard]

I heard several years ago that there was a significant rockfall on Gunsight that changed a route. could it have been the west face? or was it one of the south routes?