Castle Peak Survey

Castle Peak Survey

Oct 7 12am – Oct 8 3:30am (27.5 hrs continuous moving)

39 miles hiking, 24 miles boating

Eric, Matt, Mike

Sumary of results: Elevation 8343.4ft +/-0.2ft, back on the WA Top 100 list (link to my up-to-date WA Top 100 list, updated with each new survey: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1gYaBTa32bLfXiQFrcpTJ58KjO1HIAEEMBDrttHFxUOg/edit?usp=sharing )

Castle Peak is an 8,000ft+ mountain located in the western Pasayten wilderness near the Canadian border. As a result of my recent surveys it had been bumped off the WA Top 100 list because other peaks I surveyed turned out to be higher. It’s elevation had been surveyed for the quad, but it is not covered by Lidar. In rare instances quad-surveyed heights can have errors up to 30ft-40ft. This is likely due to propagating errors with theodolite measurements when the original measurements were done for peaks that were far from benchmarks.

Castle was in the edge-case situation where one of the rare errors on the quad could result in it being bumped back up to be included in the WA Top 100 list. The quad-surveyed height was 8,306ft, and the cutoff for list inclusion was 8326ft. So an error of at least 20ft in one direction would bump it back onto the list. Most likely, though, the quad error would be smaller and the status wouldn’t change. I’m trying to survey all of these edge-case peaks now with very accurate surveying equipment that can get accuracy on the level of inches, and Castle was next on the list.

I had previously climbed Castle in late October 2018 by starting from Manning Park in BC. That was a 29-mile hike with about half the distance bushwhacking, and I did it as a day hike. This time I wanted to come in from the US side. I was hoping to test some modifications I’d made to my zodiac boat before upcoming winter trips, and a trip to Castle Peak would be the perfect excuse to do this. I read that Eric Eames in 2015 had climbed Castle via the US side, and he took a water taxi up ross lake before hiking up Lightning Creek and Freezout Creek. In 2018 Josh Lewis had hiked from the East Bank traihead and met up with Eric Eames’ route.

I planned to take my zodiac boat up Ross Lake and then follow the lightning creek – freezout creek route. Currently with the Silver Skagit road from BC washed out for the past few years and not projected to be repaired for another few years, there are limited options for motorized boat access on Ross Lake to northern trailheads. Water taxis are available, but they book out weeks in advance, are expensive, and are on a limited schedule. You could stay at the ross lake resort and rent a boat (only available to people at the resort), but that books out a year in advance. Or you can carry your own boat down a trail to the lake.

My zodiac is about 70 lbs for the boat, 50 lbs for the 5hp outboard motor, and 30 lbs for the propane tank. I’ve used it on many trips on Ross Lake. I just strap the components to my backpack and carry them down the trail to frontage road. I then have deployable wheels mounted so I can drag it from there to the lake shore. It can easily get three people and gear to the northern end of the lake and any trailhead in a reasonable amount of time. The boat goes about 5.5mph when full loaded, and this is as fast as I would want to go on Ross Lake. I tend to boat a lot at night on Ross, and there are some partially-submerged stumps in certain areas that I need to go slow enough to avoid in the dark. I have a set of Jeep off-roading headlights I’ve mounted to a motorcycle battery on the bow, and these help, but reflect off fog a lot. This trip I was hoping to test out a pair of new yellow fog-beams instead.

I had also just gotten the motor back from the shop where they had repaired components in the fuel injection system. Apparently steel propane canisters can rust on the inside and that rust gets inside the outboard motor and causes problems. On my last trip using the boat I’d motored out to Blake Island in Puget Sound, but then had to row back 5 miles in choppy ocean waves when the motor wouldn’t start. Now I had a new aluminum propane canister that I also wanted to test instead. I’d given the boat a short test run on Lake Washington mid-week and verified everything was in working order, but I still wanted to do a more thorough test by taking it on Ross Lake.

Matt was interested in joining since Castle was his final peak on the traditional WA Top 100 list. He would fly in from Montana to join for the weekend. Mike was also interested. This was great to have three people so we could single carry all the boat components down. Usually when I take the zodiac to Ross Lake for winter objectives I have one partner and need to double carry gear.

Ross Lake is technically currently only open now for day-use (because of the Sourdough Fire on the southwest corner) so we planned to do the climb and surveying as a car-to-car trip. This would be 100% legal. It would be long, with somewhere between 30-40miles hiking we estimated, plus a lot of boating, so we planned to start early. Interestingly, according to NOHRSC all the snow from the previous week had melted so we planned to hike in trail runners with no traction required.

Friday afternoon I picked Matt up at the light rail station and we drove up to the Ross Dam trailhead where Mike met us. We got a 3-hour nap then were up and moving by midnight. I carried the boat strapped to my pack. Mike carried the outboard motor on a backpack, then the propane canister in a hand and a small day pack on his front. Matt carried a duffle of boat accessories plus a backpack full of my survey equipment and personal gear.

We quickly made it to Frontage Road, then inflated the boat and deployed the wheels. We dragged it down to Ross Lake, then I got in and paddled over to the small dock where Matt and Mike jumped in. The motor started on the third pull, which is normal when starting cold. We cruised up to the log water fence, then found the gap with the reflector cones on the north end and squeezed through. As usual, the lake was foggy in the dark, but my new fog lights were very effective. I could see much farther ahead this time and felt much more comfortable boating at night. I had loaded a GPS track on my watch of my optimal route up the lake to avoid stump zones, and I glanced at this occasionally to stay on course.

Based on recent satellite images I knew the water level was low enough so the dock at the Lightning Creek takout was on dry land. So I charted a course to hit a good takeout south of that.

We cruised up for two hours, then reached the planned shore of the takeout. We dragged the boat onshore, tied it up, then started hiking by 4am. The Lightning Creek trail was in excellent shape, and we quickly gained 1000ft before dropping back 400ft down to the creek crossing. We followed the east side until Nightmare Camp, where we stopped at a damaged bridge. From there we followed the abandoned Freezout Creek trail.

It soon enters a rock slide from Skagit Mtn and disappears, but there are ribbons on the other side. Once we regained the trail we found it in surprisingly good shape. It is definitely being maintained by somebody, and we made excellent time. The trail stayed well-above Freezout Creek, and by 8:30am we came across a small cabin. It looked like it was locked, but it was really only fake-locked. Twisting a single nail allowed the door to open.

Inside were bunks, food, cross-cut saws, and all sorts of amenities. There was a visitor’s log book placed in 2013 that said the cabin was built in the mid 1920s and used for rangers conducting snow depth measurements. This year the only sign in was from early April. We stayed a bit for a break, then continued. The trail stayed in mostly good shape until 4200ft, where we lost it at a creek crossing with a lot of blowdowns. From there we mostly just bushwhacked up the west side of Freezout creek.

Interestingly, at a small spring in the woods I found a long and deep set of bear tracks that looked like they had seen many footprints in a 30ft section. I’ve seen this once before, in Northwest Territories, Canada. My friend who is a wildlife biologist says this is where bears can compare themselves to each other to see which one is bigger. The first bear in the territory makes the tracks in a commonly-used area like near a spring. Then if another bear wanders into the territory it walks in the same tracks. It can thus judge if it is bigger or smaller than the original bear. If its tracks are bigger, it might try to take over the territory. If smaller, it will leave and avoid confrontation. The tracks thus get used a lot and become well-worn, as I had seen.

The bushwhacking was mostly through open forest, but we did have to climb over a few blowdowns and push through a few alder patches. By about 5500ft we emerged from the trees in meadows and got a great view of Castle Peak looming above. Indeed, there was no snow, as predicted.

We crossed back to the right side of the creek and followed the edge of a talus field. We then scrambled up bright red heather slopes, then up a scree slope to the southwest ridge. From there it was a fun class 2/3 scramble to the summit by 1:45pm.

I quickly pulled out my differential GPS and mounted the antenna on the tripod exactly over the summit. Interestingly, there was a small silver USGS maker on the summit, though it wasn’t the same as the official benchmark markers.

We relaxed on top for the full one-hour measurement, and were treated to clear skies and excellent views. There were actually a lot of colorful larches in the valley to the north. South Hozomeen looked intimidating to the west, and farther west we got a good view of the Chiliwacks. I pointed out Solitude Peak, which I had surveyed earlier this summer is actually prominent enough to be added to the WA Top 100 list.

After the hour finished I saved the data and we headed down. We retraced our route down the scree and back into the woods. This time partway through the bushwhack at 4800ft we picked up the trail and it was in decent shape. We were able to follow it all the way back to the cabin by dark. After a short break we continued by headlamp, evenually reaching Ross Lake by 11:30pm.

The boat was right where we’d left it, and we soon loaded up and got in. I was a little nervous about the motor starting since I had accidentally left the choke out the whole time on the boat ride up. But it started on the third pull as usual, so this apparently wasn’t a problem. By then we had all been up for 24 hours and were exhausted. I had a bit of trouble staying awake manning the tiller. Every few minutes I would scoop up a handful of water to throw on my face, then slap my cheeks. This seemed to work. Talking also helped.

We made it back to the takeout without issue, then dragged the boat up Frontage Road. We managed to single-carry the gear up the 0.6-mile trail. This is usually tough at the end of a trip since the boat and other gear is wet and thus heavier. Though the propane tank was only half full so was a bit lighter.

By 3:30am we all made it back to the truck for a 27.5-hour continuous push. Matt needed to catch a mid-day flight back to Montana so we only got to take a 2 nap at the trailhead before driving straight back to town.

At home after waiting 24 hours from the measurement time I was able to process the differential GPS results using OPUS, the online processing tool provided by NOAA. I found Castle Peak is 8343.4 ft /- 0.2ft. This puts Castle solidly back on the WA Top 100 list, currently at number 93. Interestingly, we had discovered that Castle is one of the rare WA Top 100 contenders for which there is a relatively large error in the quad-surveyed elevation.

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