13.5 miles of hiking • 7000' elevation gain • 2 nights
New Summit - 7 of 20 for the Year 2013
This trip started out with one of my life time friends telling me that his pops was coming to visit from Colorado. We started talking about areas and peaks that would be good for someone to really experience the north cascades. We had a short list and it was all going to depend upon the weather. We would either head east or north. Wednesday afternoon the forecast looked bomber for the North Cascades (which is still always a gamble as we would soon find out) I sent out a few text messages and plans were set. We would leave work early on Friday and drive up to the trail head to camp for the night. Then on Saturday we would hike in to Lewis Lake and setup camp. I tossed out the idea to try for Black Peak on Sunday and possibly Corteo Peak on Saturday since we would get to camp early enough to do a day climb that afternoon. Everyone was on board and all we needed to do now was hit the road.
After being held up at work for a bit... we finally hit the road around 2:30. Just in time to get stuck in traffic all the way from Seattle to Everett !!! Woohoo talk about fun, but at least we did get to test out the new temporary bridge on I-5. We stopped at the Buffalo Run in Marblemount to have dinner. We filled up on Buffalo and Beer. Shortly after that we made our way down to the trailhead to camp for the night. We drank a bit more and shared a few laughs before turning in.
The following morning we woke up to what seemed like a gorgeous day. Nope not so much... Just as we were sorting and packing up our gear, we hear a couple of really loud booms. Thunder was in the area and so were some really nasty dark clouds. Everyone questioned my forecast ability and took jabs at me, but I promised them we would climb above it in about an hour. Sure enough we started to break through the rain and pea soup layer just as we reached the last few switch backs up to the ridge. From there it was an easy traverse over to Lewis Lake. We made great time and were all setup at camp before noon, so we decided to give Corteo a try. We got pretty high up on the ridge before an afternoon thunderstorm caught up to us and forced us down. Then like usual just as we got back to camp, the sun decided to come back out. We dried everything out and took afternoon naps. Later we had dinner and marveled at Black Peak which would be our big objective for Sunday.
Sunday morning we slept in a bit, but still broke camp around 7. We made good time on the approach up to the saddle of Black. From there we geared up and got ready for the South Ridge Scramble. It ended up being a very enjoyable climb on some good solid rock. A couple class 4 sections up towards the top made for a nice finish to a great adventure. This was the first summit that I have shared with Paul and it will be one that I will always remember. A few years back I missed out on the Rainier adventure when he came to visit. So I knew missing this one was not an option. Special thanks to the love of my life "Mayumi" for understanding how important this trip was to me and allowing me to go off on this adventure on the weekend before she was heading back up to Alaska for a month due to work.
On the way out we enjoyed a few nice glissade runs and then it was a long hot slog out with full packs. We ended up right back where we started at the Buffalo Run for some much needed food and beverages. The drive home proved to be the crux of the climb. Another 4 hours of being crammed into a car after hiking for over 12 hours was not fun !!! Special Thanks to my buddy Jason as well for helping share the drive time.
