My Buddy and I thought it would be a good idea to do something different and a bit of the beaten path, especially while we could still access this part of Highway 20.
There are limited trip reports about this peak, but looks like this peak can be approached via East Creek Trail or at Granite Creek pullout. Read that a few people combined it as a High Route Traverse from Methow Pinnacles in the Spring or Early Fall.
Started at around 9 AM and parked the car at the pullout, approx. at 48.625341, -120.840983
We knew that this approach would be very steep, completely off-trail with tons of blowdowns.
Intermittent snow dusting started at the bottom. We put on spikes at around 4,500ft just before we went up a sort of loose gully. This gully was very steep with thin snow and it's somewhat icy.
More consistent snow started above 5,500ft and we put on snowshoes after 6,000ft. Snow was a lot softer but still had decent crust. The last 1,000ft felt very slow going with all the trail breaking.
Reached the summit by 2 PM. Summit view was very gorgeous with views of Jack Mountain, Azurite, Golden Horn, Black Peak, Beebe, etc.
After a few pictures, we proceeded to reverse our route back down. At first, we cruised on the way down and for some reason we managed to get very off route near the gully. Instead of correcting our route, we kept going down and had to downclimb part of the cliff in order to go back to the gully.
Took around 3.5 hours to go back to the car and donned a headlamp the last 30 minutes.
Stats: 4.2 mi RT, over 3,800ft gain, 8:34
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