Cardinal Peak Winter Ascent

Cardinal Peak True Summit Winter Ascent

Feb 1-2, 2025

Eric and Andy

18 miles skiing, 22 miles snowmobiling

First Winte Ascent (south ridge, M3)

80/100 Winter Bulgers

Cardinal Peak is a technical mountain located in the Entiat range in eastern washington. It is one of the Bulgers (hundred highest mountains), and I’d previously climbed it several times. I climbed it in summer 2018 on my first lap of the Bulgers, then failed on a solo winter attempt in January 2020, then succeeded in February 2020 with Fred. That was the first winter ascent of what was widely believed at the time was the true summit.

In June 2023 I returned again because I’d learned that the southern summit of Cardinal might be a little bit taller than the middle summit, but it had never been surveyed with enough accuracy to know for sure. The southern summit is technical, with a short 5th class section at the top, while the middle summit is a non-technical scramble. On that trip I hauled a 20-arcsecond mechanical theodolite up both summits and measured the south summit is in fact 7 inches taller than the middle. That meant the south summit is the true summit of Cardinal peak. (Nick led the technical climb up the south summit and I jugged up the rope hauling the theodolite).

That result meant my February 2020 trip technically did not tag the true summit. I want to be as rigorous as possible in my attempt to climb all the Bulgers in winter, so that meant I had to return to Cardinal to officially check it off the list.

The route up Cardinal avoids avy terrain, so I was saving it for a weekend with marginal snow conditions. This past weekend fit the bill, and Andy was excited to join.

On my previous winter trips to Cardinal I skinned up the 11 mile snowed over road approach to reach the trailhead. However, now I have a snowmobile and the approach is much faster.

Saturday morning Andy and I met up at the Entiat Sno Park and unloaded the sled. Interestingly, a policeman stopped by and started checking for sno park permits and tabs. This is the first time in my four years owning a snowmobile that anyone has ever checked for my tabs (I of course always buy them). I guess I usually show up to a sno park late at night, start sledding out super early like 2am, and always return late at night. I pretty much have never seen another snowmobiler at a sno park or on the trails with this schedule.

We got packed up and moving by 9:30am and the road was luckily freshly groomed. I cruised at 40mph and soon reached the north fork turnoff, where the grooming stopped. We continued riding mandem but at one point I lost my balance in the deep fresh powder and we had to jump off the sled before it tipped over. Andy pulled a ski and I gingerly feathered the throttle to get it out of the ditch without getting officially stuck. From there we rode princess (passenger in front), which allowed me to maintain balance moving around on the back of the sled. We reached the north fork trailhead by 10:30am, and avoided getting stuck.

From there we skinned up the north fork trail, following an old snowed-over set of snowmobile tracks. The tracks went up the Butte Creek turnoff, and I suspect they might have been connecting to the Big Hill road, which sounds like an ambitious loop. We made fast progress up the trail in the soft new snow, and left the trail at Grouse Creek. We took turns breaking trail up the side drainage, and eventually topped out at our planned camping location at a 7100ft flat basin by 7pm.

We found a sheltered spot in some trees, dug out a platform, and set up the megamid tent for the night.

The next morning was supposed to be clear and cold, upper single digits F near the summit, with snow coming in the afternoon. The plan was to start early enough to do any technical climbing in the daylight, but not so early that it would be really cold. On my previous winter climb I had skied around the east side of the summit to gain the north ridge, and cramponed up that to the middle summit. The normal route to the true summit generally involves first climbing the middle summit, then continuing south to the true summit. That route crossed a few avy slopes, and we planned to avoid that given the fresh snow. Instead, we planned to climb directly up the south ridge to the true summit. This would be more technical, but would not enter avy terrain.

We left shortly before sunrise around 6:15am and broke trail up mellow slopes to eventually reach the edge of the south ridge of Cardinal by 8am. There the snow was scoured down to ice and rock, so we ditched the skis and continued in crampons.

Higher on the south ridge the mellow terrain ended around 8400ft. We ditched poles, then downclimbed a short 3rd class step to a notch. Ahead of us was a techincal rock section, but it was short. We roped up there and I took over the lead. I got a big purple hex in at the base of a chimney, then climbed right, above the steep east face. I managed to get a few cams in and got some good tool hooks and eventually made it up the few M2 moves.

I crossed the top of the rock hump, then delicatley downclimbed the steep ridge on the opposite side. Andy followed, and on the other side we encountered easy walking terrain. Interestingly, we saw fresh mountain goat tracks along the ridge, and the tracks had taken a different route around the west side of the rock hump. I kept that in mind for the return so we could maybe avoid rapping the rock step.

We shortened the rope and walked along the ridge for a bit, then scrambled around the west side of a gendarme to within a rope length of the summit. At that point the options were to climb a steep slabby pitch to stay exactly on the crest, or to traverse a steep snow face on the east face of a rock wall. We opted to take the easier snow face, with running pro just in case it slid.

I led across, getting in ample protection. The snow was 8 inches of powder on top of a solid crusty base. There was no risk of that causing any problems. I led across about 40m and reached the base of the final summit block. I recognized this area well from my 2023 survey trip. On that trip I’d jugged up the rope Nick left directly up to the summit, carrying a heavy pack of survey equipment. But this time I saw a less direct but easier route up.

I built an anchor at the base and belayed Andy over. I ditched my pack there, next to some more fresh mountain goat tracks, and started up. The route went a bit climbers left of the summit up a weakness in the face. I got solid tool placements and placed a few bomber cams. It was cold, around 10F, and I climbed in my down jacket. Soon I crested the small notch on the crest and crossed over to the southwest side.

Once over that the terrain mellowed and I scrambled over to the summit. Luckily the rap anchor was easy to find, so I clipped on and belayed Andy up around 11am. The weather was still clear, but it was certainly cold. Amazingly, the summit register was easy to find sticking out of the snow, and I signed us in. The register was placed in 1965, and is one of the oldest I can remember on Bulger peaks. This is, in fact, only the third Bulgers summit register I’ve ever been able to find in the winter, and it felt great to sign it (the others are Emerald and Boston, which I dug out with a shovel under several ft of snow).

Andy rapped down first and got some awesome drone footage, then I followed. We returned the same way, simul climbing across the snow face with rock pro above. When we got to the last rock hump we decided to give the mountain goat’s route a shot. We downclimbed any icy snow face on the west side, then traversed and climbed back up another icy face to gain the notch we’d roped up at. This route was much better. I guess the goat knows its way around the mountain better than we do.

We scrambled the last bit up to our poles, then walked back down to our skis as visibility dropped and it started snowing. We had good timing to avoid that on the summit. It was a fun ski back to camp, and we continued shredding fun powder all the way back down Grouse Creek to the main trail.

From there we skinned back out to the trailhead, reaching the sled just before sunset. Andy managed to get some quick drone footage of me riding on the road, then we loaded up for good. This time I was ultra careful to avoid getting stuck. Andy rode princess again all the way down to the main road and I only had him jump off once when we started drifting off the road. But we never got stuck. Then we cruised back at 40mph on the main road, reaching the trucks at 7pm.

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