[TR] Mt. Stone - Route 1 11/24/2007

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Trip: Mt. Stone - Route 1

 

Date: 11/24/2007

 

Trip Report:

After some tasty turkey, and a day for it to settle, I headed out with my old friend David who was home visiting family as well. The weather forecast wasn't real clear, but I figured since I'd never been up to Lake of the Angels before it would be a good choice with the possibility of climbing something if conditions looked good.

 

Something white was lightly falling from the sky as we turned onto the Hamma Hamma road. David said it must be lots of lichen coming off the tree. We started the hike in and as we busted up out of the trees at the end of the maintained trail, the sun also busted through the clouds.

 

Mt. Stone looked good so we headed up towards the standard route, little did we know that you can't see the rimey summit from the trail.

 

 

We headed up the snow which made travel really easy. The recent snow had already consolidated for good travel, probably all fluffy again now though. We climbed up under the cliffs and traversed left and up to the ridge (skyline). Here was the first steep bit.

 

 

The snow wasn't bad, but there was some hard ice under it so we put crampons on after this. One more little icy step popped us onto the ridge and we finally got a good view of the real summit.

 

 

As you can see, the clouds came back with wind and some more lichen. Looking at the thin coating of ice over the rock was not inspiring given our lack of a rope and my dull aluminum axe and crampons. We investigated anyways.

 

Right before turning around to head down, the sun reemerged striking new confidence into our hearts. Uncovering the cairn marking the route on the right we had overlooked helped too. The normally 3rd class rock was iced over, but I managed to chip out a few of the key holds and made my way up about 20 feet to easier ground. David wasn't as comfortable with the need to downclimb the icy rocks and sent me up the last 100 feet on my own. Here is the obligatory summit self portrait. It took about 5 hours from the car.

 

 

I headed down after a minute. At the top of the sketchy downclimb I tossed my pack down to David and then picked my way down. I got a couple of solid sticks in the ice with my aluminum axe and made it down. We gathered our stuff and headed down. Here David points back. The summit block looks nicer in the sun. The route is on the far right up the ice smear to the snow.

 

Here is David coming down the last bit:

 

On the way down Mt. Pershing lit up with the sunset. I'd like to get up there too.

 

 

On the trail out we waited a bit to check on some kids coming down behind us to make sure they had a light, and then strolled back to the car. There was one other party signed it that said they were climbing Stone too, but it looked like they were spending the night at the lake first (which I still haven't actually seen).

 

Great climb, the conditions really made it a bit more interesting than usual and it was good to climb with David again. I'll definitely have to explore that area more. I wonder if that waterfall on the approach ever freezes?

 

More pictures can be found here: Picasa Web Album

 

Gear Notes:

Aluminum axe and crampons.

 

Approach Notes:

Putvin Trail almost to Lake of the Angels, head up right into the bowl below Stone when you can (4,500 ft), the snow started around 4,000 ft but wasn't deep. That's probably changed now.

[Animal]

Awesome! Good to see that mountain all encrusted in ice!

 

 

[olyclimber]

Cool! That looks like a lot of fun. Thanks for the pics and report, can't wait to able to get back out in the Olympics.

[wayne]

Thanks , You brought back some great memories.

[jport]

Reads like a reasonable day-climb. I'll have to look into hitting this up. Suitable for a January ascent?

[bremerton_john]

The word on the street is that the Hamma Hamma road is washed out about 3 miles before the Putvin way trail. As of one week ago the road is apparently passable up to about M.P.9, which allows access to the Lena Lake trail head. There are three major slides/washouts on the road between M.P.9 and the Putvin trail head. I do not believe these will be fixed for some time. The destruction is apparently quite massive. A group that went up to Lake of the Angels reported three washouts/slides on the trail itself, requiring some down climbing/fjording. The trail was covered with debris and ice in some places.

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Bummer, I was hoping to get back up in there again too, guess I'll have to make it an overnight.

 

Jport, it would be different in January, but certainly plenty climbable, maybe easier with good snow over the rocky bit, or at least more ice. Fairly sever avalanche danger on the approach though so keep that in mind.