[TR] Reynolds Peak - EENE Ridge Approach 8/31/2008

[therunningdog]

Trip: Reynolds Peak - EENE Ridge Approach

 

Date: 8/31/2008

 

Trip Report:

 

It was 6am somewhere on the Twisp River Road, and TJ and I had just spent 3 days doing some hardcore peakbaggin' (Big Craggy, W. Craggy, Oval, Courtney, Star, Abernathy). Feeling a bit tired after lots of vertical travel and celebrating my birthday with our friend Pabst the night before, TJ and I were on the cusp of bailing on the last mountain on our itinerary, Reynolds Peak.

 

We almost succumbed to temptations of breakfast and good coffee in Twisp, as we were anticipating a nasty bushwhack to get up Reynolds from the Twisp River Road approach. But we mustered up the energy to get going up the trail, and what we found was a great hike and scramble with very little bushwhacking at all. We took a seemingly untrammeled route which we called the East-East-North-East(EENE) Ridge. I havent seen a TR for this specific route, so here goes....

 

 

 

We hiked up the Reynolds Creek Trail for few miles until we got to about 4800 feet, at that point we left the trail and headed left, down towards Reynolds Creek. We saw a few traces of trail here, and some orange tape at the point where we crossed Reynolds Creek, still at about the 4800-4850 foot elevation.From here we hiked uphill, with Reynolds Creek to our right until we arrived at the base of an immense slope of slide alder. It's one of the largest swathes of slide alder I have ever seen, and just thinking about what it would take to get through it makes me cringe. :cry:Anyways, from here we traversed left below the slide alder until we arrived at the base of a boulder field filled with bright, clean granitic rock(Boulder Field #1). We hiked up this for a couple hundred feet to it's end, then hiked up and left until we got to the base of a mossy boulder field (Boulder Field #2). Again, we hiked up this boulder field to its end, then traversed up and (mostly) left until we got to the base of a bigger boulder field with clean, bright granite(Boulder Field #3). We hiked up this field to its end, exited it to its left side, then continued mostly up, but somewhat left for several hundred feet until we were on open slopes and at the base of the EENE Ridge. At this point we had encountered some brush, but not very much at all...it was really quite pleasant! :tup:A few hundred feet vertical feet of walking up on the east side of the ridge on slabby, dirty, but easy slopes brought us to the crest of the ridge at about 6300 feet. From this point on, the route was straightforward and really fun. Most of the ridge is simply hiking, but there are a few spots of class 3 moves to spice things up just a bit.

 

Climbing on the EENE Ridge:

 

 

 

We had wide open views on both sides of us, even though the weather wasnt so great we had awesome views of east side peaks. We climbed straight over point 7038 and continued on the ridge until about 7300 feet, where we dropped down to the left and continued up easy scree and boulder slopes to the final class 3 summit scramble.

 

 

TJ scrambling up to the top of Point 7038:

 

The top of the ridge from Point 7038, with Reynolds Peak behind:

 

We arrived at the summit a bit over 4 hours from the car. Going down took us about 2.5.

 

Stepping across a chasm on the way down the ridge:

 

Another shot on the ridge:

 

 

 

It turned out to be a great day out, and a rewarding routefinding experience. I think this area would make for a good ski, too. Also a cool hike because didnt see traces of anyone after we crossed Reynolds Creek, except for the summit register.

 

We eventually got GOOD FOOD later that day in Marblemount to finish off a great trip of top-100 exploration. I drank heavily that night.

 

 

 

Approach Notes:

Uh, I think I over did it already.

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Ballers! Nice work, you two.

[wbk]

Heading up this way myself. Nice to run into a TR from you Runningdog!