[TR] Robinson Mountain - Southeast Ridge 6/23/2007

[iluka]

Trip: Robinson Mountain - Southeast Ridge

 

Date: 6/23/2007

 

Trip Report:

When the weather forecasts for the weekend made our original Olympics plans less than appealing we opted to head east in search of better weather and settled on Robinson Mountain in the Pasayten. Given that the forecasts for Sunday weren't so great even that far east, we opted to do it in a day. We were well-rewarded with a great scramble in great weather.

 

The approach starts by heading out the Robinson Creek Trail from the trailhead 9 miles out of Mazama. After 3 miles and about 1,000 feet of gain, we crossed the bridge at Beauty Creek. 50 feet after the bridge, a climbers trail heads up through the woods. It wasn't entirely obvious with the brush growing a bit but once on it, we had no problem following it. It climbs steeply for about 1,100 feet before leveling out a bit as it traverses the Beauty Creek drainage. At 5200, you come to an obvious creek draining down from the left. The crossing here was no problem. Once on the other side, we found a grassy slope ascending steeply to the left. You head right up this slope, keeping relatively close to the creek the entire way. There is a faint trail in spots but it keeps petering out but it's a no brainer to figure out the route. After 1,000 feet, the incline lessens as you hit a forested area. Still not trail, but it's easy travel up an easy grade until you get to the top of the basin where there's a beautiful tarn. This is the camp spot if you're doing it as an overnight... would be great in the fall when the larches are bright orange.

 

From there, we took the snow slope up to the ridge at the head of the basin (red arrow on the photo below). Rather than going over the highest point, we opted to shoot for a lower saddle a bit to the left. It was a bit steep up near the top but easy to get good purchase in the snow. In the summer, this may be a big scree slog. Once at the saddle, we had a great view to the N Cascades and of the rest of the route.

 

 

 

 

From there, we followed the obvious ridge as it climbed towards the summit. The high point that's visible from here is actually the false summit and not the true summit. It's a one mile ridge run with great views on both sides. For most of it, the hiking is no problem. If you meet any obstacles, it's plenty easy to move a bit to the left (west) and get around it.

 

 

 

The only obstacle was the false summit. From a distance, it felt like I was back at Tomyhoi where one stands on the false summit, looks at the true summit and wonders why we didn't bring protection, only to get on the route and find that the scrambling is pretty straightforward. Many people opt to take the line marked in yellow in the photo up the steep first part of this portion of the scramble. We opted, instead, to drop down a bit and follow the red line around to the left of this section where we found a short gully (hidden by the rock wall in the photo) that went up to our right and regained the route where it's marked in green and continued scrambling up. This section is Class 3 with some pretty good exposure. We read reports that mentioned no need to have a helmet along but were glad we had ours... definitely needed. You could justify a scramble rope here as well.

 

 

Once at the top of this section, it was a short easy walk to the summit and lots of great views in great weather.

 

For the descent, we followed the ridge back down to the slopes above the tarn. The snow at the top of our ascent route was pretty steep and, given that it was reasonably firm and the clouds had kept things cool, we didn't want to descend that route. Instead, we followed the yellow line in the photo above down the ridge to the SE until we were able to access the scree slopes that headed down to the snow where it was less steep. The scree was quite easy for descending. An easy trip down from there.

 

Overall, a great scramble. Lots of solitude. Great views. Mixed terrain. It doesn't seem to be as well known as other east side scrambles but well worth the trip out there.

 

Gear: Axe, helmet, crampons (perhaps a scramble rope depending on one's level of comfort)

 

Car-to-Car: 13 hours

 

Car to Summit: 7 hours

 

Elevation Gain: 6100+ feet

 

Distance: 14 miles

 

[tvashtarkatena]

Good approach beta. It's on my list. Thanks for posting.

[Toast]

We saw you guys coming down. We were the silly one's who stuck it out the night and summited the next day. From the tarn, we went up to the left to gain the ridge. Storms loomed, and we got snowed on as we made it to the summit. This is a great non technical climb and a good option if weather is looking lame on the westside.

 

:tup: