[TR] St. Peter's Dome - West Chute 4/21/2007

[bremerton_john]

Trip: St. Peter's Dome - West Chute

 

Date: 4/21/2007

 

Trip Report:

Animal and I headed down the Duckabush trail on Saturday morning with the intent on climbing St. Peter's Dome. I've had my eye on it for years and wondered how to get at it. We've never met anyone whose climbed it before, but considering its proximity to a main trail its hard to believe it hasn't been. I did find a short route description on bivouac.com that read:

 

"Access is from a logging road that runs up the Duckabush River. From a bend in the road, hike west along a trail that runs along the Duckabush River to Cliff Creek. Bushwack southwest along Cliff Creek and scramble up the south slope to reach the summit"

 

What the? Go up Cliff Creek? Those tightly spaced contour lines at low elevation on the topo map generally spell chossy moss-ridden hell in the Olympics. Who wrote this? Maybe it is possible, but it sure looked to us that the only reasonable approach to the Dome was from the west/southwest by fording the Duckabush River well past Big Hump. So that is what we did.

 

 

This is abouut 2 miles past Big Hump. It's damn cold but not the raging torrent we thought we were going to find for a spring run-off. Immediately after entering the woods on the opposite (south) side we found old orange flagging on a tree. Aha, anyone? So we proceeded up through the woods paralleling a creek, likely a seasonal one as it doesn't show on the map other than a crease in the contours.

 

 

Oh, it was raining too and the visibility sucked. Then when we got a little higher the rain turned into that white stuff. We found one more orange flag at about 3000 feet, but still a ways from the Dome.

 

 

We were in the woods, couldn't see anywhere, didn't have altimeters (various reasons), nor crampons (yep, those would've been nice). So we ended up going the wrong direction up a chute to the SW. Fortunately I did have a compass and we traversed back east to a point where we could just make out the Dome through the mist. This photo was taken the next morning (Sunday) on the way out when the visibility was much better.

 

 

That's the Dome on the left. Looks kinda different from this direction than it does from the Duck trail. We went up between the main summit and the next little knob to the right. There is a steep chute in there with a couple of spicey boulder moves, but enough greenery to grovel. Here's a pic of the ridge once at the saddle.

 

 

And here's Animal on the top.

 

 

The only thing we could see were the sheer walls down into Cliff Creek to the east of us. We dropped back into the little basin to the west of the Dome, found a big overhanging boulder and crawled under for the night. We retraced our steps the next morning (about 6" snow fell that night), and made our way out.

 

It was 9 hours from car to summit on Saturday, but that included our route-finding goof-ups.

 

Gear Notes:

We shoulda had crampons, it was quite icy in places. We did rap down the steep chute partially for this reason. Bring an altimeter too so you know when to start your traverse east after bushwacking up through the hillside. We coulda used one of those too.

 

Approach Notes:

This approach seems the most viable to me. But give Cliff Creek a try, I'd like to know how it goes.

 

 

[catbirdseat]

That stream crossing sure looked chilly. Brrrrr.

[Stefan]

OHHHH! You robbed me! I was gonna try this peak soon!

[spicoli11]

Always wanted to go out there myself. You don't here to much about the dome. Nice effort!!!

[Animal]

Wow, your trip report was much better than mine. Great job John Once again I managed to screw up my trip report post. Great trip! Now lets climb and ski the peak I added a picture of in my post.

 

 

[bremerton_john]

That stream crossing sure looked chilly. Brrrrr.

 

Check it out in video!

 

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Edited April 26, 2007 by bremerton_john

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Nice job, looks like the Olympics season is finally opening. So what about that mythical rock route up the steep side of the dome?