Big Chiwaukum and Snowgrass Mountain

Big Chiwaukum (8,081 ft) and Snowgrass Mountain (7,993ft)

Looking up at Big Chiwaukum after the weather cleared

August 31, 2020, Eric

22 miles, 9,900ft gain

I left town early in the morning and was hiking up the White Pine trailhead by 6:45am. The trail had tons of blueberries along the way, which led to some delays.

As I reached the turnoff for Big Chiwaukum I noticed the clouds were still stubbornly stuck on the summits after the previous night’s rain event. So, to give them time to burn off I decided to hike Snowgrass first. I hiked up to just after the Grace Lake turnoff, then went off trail straight up the sloe to gain the south ridge of Snowgrass near point 7161. From there it was an easy hike to a grassy false summit. I then did a short 3rd class scramble along a narrow ridge and then hiked scree to the summit. by 11:30am.

The view from snowgrass. Notice the double lenticular on Rainier

Luckily the clouds had burned off by then in my area and I had great views. To the west, though, the peaks were stuck in a blanket of clouds with only a few tall ones peaking out through the undercast. It was a pretty neat view.

The final scramble up Snowgrass

Big Chiwaukum looked pretty close, and it was tempting to just try to traverse there. But every report I’d read of traversing between the peaks made it sound like sketchy 4th class (one person called it sphincter-clenching). I didn’t feel like trying that kind of route, so instead went for the longer but safe option. I returned the way I’d come all the way to the trail, then hiked to Lake Grace.

I went around the lake then hiked up to the ridge north of the lake. There I met up with a faint climbers trail following the normal route up Big Chiwaukum. I hiked up the steep slope to gain the south ridge of Big Chiwaukum, then traversed a bit below the ridge on the west. I skirted around a few blocky gendarms and soon scrambled up to the summit. Interestingly, the summit register went back to 1981, which is one of the oldest ones I’ve seen in the cascades. (The oldest one I’ve ever seen was in Wyoming, which went back to 1930 on East Twin).

I admired the view, sent off a few work emails, then scrambled back down. This time I took the normal route down to the trail with plenty of blueberry stops. I made it back to the car around 6:45pm for a 12 hour day.