W. Ridge of Thompson Peak TR

[Alpine_Tom]

Did it with JoshK Saturday. Fine conditions, but a crummy descent.

Hit the trail at around 8:00, summited around 4:00 PM, and were back to the car about 9:00. I had beta on a shortcut for the PCT approach from MVS, but we decided not to take it, reasoning that we could easily waste more time trying to find the shortcut than the shortcut would save. (Probably 45 minutes of the time was taken up by messing with cameras over the course of the day.)

 

The Saturday of Labor Day weekend, on the PCT in Snoqualmie, we saw about half a dozen people on the trail the entire day. There were a couple of parties camped in the basin below Thompson, looks like a great place to hang out, but saw no one else on the route, either going up or down.

 

As Nelson says, the crux is indeed correctly identifying bumblebee pass. I was up here a few years ago, trying to do the east ridge, and took the wrong “pass” too far east on the PCT, and ended up getting cliffed out descending the other side. The pass is a very short gap in the two ridge above the trail, and the trail makes a sharp turn, about 40 degrees, there. There is actually a trail that you can find once you’re scrambling up, but it’s not really obvious from the trail.

 

We avoided rappeling on the descent. My attitude is normally: if God didn’t want me to rappel, He wouldn’t have put these rap slings here. But downclimbing is a good confidence builder, and there were just two short spots that I found scary.

 

The descent down the scree, though, is truly nasty, worse than descending Cascadia Couloir. Too bad there’s not a way to rappel down and avoid that stuff! I can't imagine it's much fun climbing this side.

 

No summit book either, but nice views. There’s a really cool looking lake to the NE that has a beautiful long waterfall coming from it, anyone know what that is?

[JoshK]

Hey Tom, good climb on Saturday. I'm glad we got out and did that, considering how nasty the weather got later in the weekend.

 

About that lake, I took a look when I got home and I'm pretty sure from the topo it's iceberg lake. Here is a link to topozone: http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=10&n=5260147&e=626308&s=25&size=l

 

It certainly looks to match the cirque surrounding it with high peaks around it and a waterfall flowing out of it.

 

-josh

[JoshK]

Oh, and another note for those considering the route...

 

I'm pretty sure Tom and I did a slight variation of the route around the 2nd and 3rd pitches. Instead of ascending the side of the "large slabs" described in Nelson's 3rd pitch, I think we stayed a bit further north, possible closer to the ridge itself or maybe even a bit north of the actual ridge. Tom, this was the area you descibed as having that "blank wall." In any event, It was probably mid 5th (maybe even a 5.7 move?), compared to the 4th and 3rd described by Nelson at this point.

 

The only downside was I got greedy once I led over that and ran out of rope just short of a good belay and had to settle with slinging a mediocre horn. Luckily the pitch after that easy and it got us up to a solid belay quickly.

 

-josh

[klenke]

Yep, that is Iceberg Lake. I have a great picture of it (unfortunately, just a print so can't send it). Incidentally, the total drop for the falls is at least 400 feet. Could be a great water ice climb, winter access permitting.

 

The lake looks inaccessible and thus reminds me of Azure Lake at the head of Stettattle Creek in N. Cascades.

[TimL]

Did this route with Fred Rogers yesterday. I'd say the hike this time of year is nearly as good as the climb. The Fall colors are really starting to come out. Bumble Bee Pass is very easy to spot form the lake as it is the first notch on the ridge to the left of the trail after the lake. As of yesterday there is a small cairn marking the entrance. The descent is trivial. Although after leaving the East Ridge and descending down the gulley make sure to stay next to the base of Thompson as the area below ths is pretty nasty, steep dirt.

[joshs]

Is the "shortcut" being referred to simply the road up the backside of Kendall Peak? That gets you to about 5000' before even getting out of the car (not to mention slicing a few miles off the PCT).

 

-Josh