[TR] Washington Monument - Grandy Creek 3/6/2009

[klenke]

Trip: Washington Monument - Grandy Creek

 

Date: 3/6/2009

 

Trip Report:

Whenever I see an odd name for a summit on the map I often feel compelled to go check it out and perhaps see why the summit might have that name. And so it was several years ago when I first learned of the named summit called Washington Monument, which is one mile southwest of 5,239-ft Dock Butte and west of Baker Lake. Dock Butte is the highest summit in the area and Washington Monument, at 4,826 ft, is second-highest.

 

Washington Monument appears as a winter ski in Dallas Kloke’s guidebook.

 

I also was intrigued by the name of the lake southwest of Washington Monument: Springsteen Lake. This lake wasn’t named after Bruce. It is the only natural feature in the U.S. given this name (there is also a Springsteen Ranch in Wyoming). Springsteen Lake also has a small bit of history with me and CascadeClimbers. For a short time I was dating (actually, attempting to date would be the better description) a gal named Shannon (Corona on CC.com). Anyway, she was totally into Bruce (and his music, I presume) and I thought it would be cool to take her to Springsteen Lake. Suffice it to say, I never took her there because the “Tunnel of Love” turned out to be a dead end as short as an Italian grotto. So, on this trip I was mildly enthused by the idea of at least laying eyes on the lake, if not from a distance. Sadly, the lake was not visible from the summit or at any place on the approach. Drat!

 

Fay Pullen, the Northwest empress of logging road skiing, had just done two day-trips to the area to tag the summits of Red Rock Mountain and Goat Mountain on either side of Grandy Creek. I told her to let me know when she went back for Washington Monument. Well that time came soon enough. Last Friday was a most excellent day to be out in the mountains. The only drawback would be that the heat of the sun transformed the snow to less than ideal conditions.

 

We set out walking the road that starts up opposite the Grandy Lake Campground (840 ft). By 1900 ft after crossing the creek we had our skis on and began the long scissoring plod toward the monument.

 

We took the road on the west side of the creek. We left the road at 3200 ft where it crosses the creek’s northwest fork and humped up through tight woods to cross a spur at 3700 ft. We carried on upward to the upper road, hitting it at 4050 ft.

 

We then took the upper road northwest, over a saddle, then into the Nooksack River drainage, where we took the final steeper spur up toward the south side of the monument.

 

From this vantage Washington Monument does have a monumental appearance (it sort of looked like a miniature north face of Liberty Bell in the North Cascades to me). But we knew there was an easier way up the back side along the final NNW ridge.

 

In about five-and-half hours from the car we were at the base of the west side on the end of a spur a few hundred feet below the top.

 

We elected to boot up the final slope because of the steepness and the fact that there was approximately four inches of powder over an icy crust (not good skiing conditions).

 

The closer we got to the summit the more a problem began to appear through the boughs of the evergreens near the ridge. You know how it is: you see a difficulty through the trees and you wonder if the trees are making it look harder than it is or easier. It’s like seeing a tiger lying down in a cage through the bars and not knowing how ferocious it really is. Well, for us, we finally got to the other side of the trees and were faced with a forty-foot 50-degree Styrofoam (icy) snow slope with moderate run-out to the right and no run out to the left (down the NE face). I was a bit concerned with doing it with ski boots on and no rope. But we had fortunately brought ice axes. Also, the boots were a blessing because I could kick steps with more vigor without mashing my toes.

 

In the end the little face was dispatched rather easily. Although, the downclimb was more of a problem. Why does it seem like the steps are always farther apart on the way down when face-in downclimbing?

 

The final summit ridge/rise is a picturesque cornice. It looks cool but it actually is a detriment to viewing the landscape out to the east because you don’t or can’t get too close to the edge to see over the top.

 

6 hours up. 4300 ft of gain (approximately) including the ups and downs.

 

 

Some views:

 

And then we had to ski down…

 

Well, the first 200-300 feet down from where we stashed the skis was the best. After that I wasn’t impressed. The snow was either sticky or soft or crusty and alternated between the three often. To make matters worse I hadn’t AT skied for at least two years and my skis weren’t waxed. The long duration between outings meant I forgot what socks I need to wear to prevent blisters on my shins. The lack of wax meant my skis would become too sticky to even slide on a slight downhill. Fortunately Fay brought some quick-to-apply wax. I had to put it on three times in all. We do the ski tour thing so we can ski down. The idea of plodding up AND DOWN isn’t funny.

 

We finally got back on the roads beyond where we left them earlier in Grandy Creek and discovered they were more bermed and cut by stream ditches than we had hoped for. So while we made a good choice to leave the road on the way up when we did (through an area of trees too tight to ski down with efficiency), we now were going slower on the road descent than we wanted. We even had to take the skis off briefly to boot up the steep embankment of a deep stream cutting across the obviously out-of-commission road.

 

The penultimate comedy of circumstances was the long approach road along Grandy Creek on the east slope of Goat Mountain. I could swear it felt uphill on the way in. So why is it now so flat on the way out? When are we going to get enough slope to maintain momentum? We longed for the eventual real downhill we knew was coming…

 

The ultimate comedy of circumstances was when we finally hit sustained downhill the snow was mostly so crusty it was impossible to do anything but snow plow else risk careening off the road. Making parallel turns (hockey turns) on a narrow logging road just doesn't appeal to me.

 

Back at the car at just over 10 hours round-trip. 4700 ft of gain.

 

I bought a 24-oz Budweiser Clamato at the store. Now, it’s not Manna, but it wasn’t Devil Juice either. I could see drinking it again. How else can you get your V8 vegetables while drinking a beer?

 

--Paul Klenke, 3/6/09

 

 

Gear Notes:

If you're timid with short steep snow faces, I suggest you take a short length of rope (no more than 30m). Oh yeah, and an ice axe.

 

Approach Notes:

Drive Baker Lake Road to Grandy Lake. Find a gated logging road opposite the lake campground entrance.

[dduncan]

I see what you mean about 'exposure on the left'! But Fay is fearless.

[DirtyHarry]

Paul, is the second to last pic of the Sisters?

[Dan_Miller]

Yep, that's the Sisters group.

 

Nice photos Paul. You made excellent use of the day.

 

I'm assuming that's the snowmobilers track so obviously heading up the Easton Glacier to the crater rim. Pretty obvious isn't it?

 

 

[Stefan]

excellent photos. gorgeous day you had there.

[klenke]

I'm assuming that's the snowmobilers track so obviously heading up the Easton Glacier to the crater rim. Pretty obvious isn't it?

 

I'm not sure if those were snowmobile tracks or climber tracks going up the glacier. I didn't see any fast moving specks.

 

The strange thing is we could only hear the snowmobiles when we were on the south side of Washington Monument well down in the Grandy Creek drainage. We could not hear them while on the summit even though it wasn't all that windy (maybe they were on a beer break). When we did hear them the sound seemed to be coming from close by, as if the 'bilers would be coming down the road at any moment to pollute the pleasure* of our day.

 

* "pleasure" doesn't apply to my skiing experience.

Edited March 10, 2009 by klenke

[plexus]

I've had some fun days knocking off some of those minor summits in that area in the winter like Anderson Butte, Sauk Mtn, Loomis Mtn, Dock Butte, etc. They might be runts, but you definitely get your work in.

 

C'mon Paul! Four miles of snowplow on icy death crust is so, so, so much fun. Hope you got a massage for your quads after the fact.

[AlpineK]

Cool pictures Paul. Without your post I would have assumed that somebody had the wrong Washington. You mean DC don't you?