Copper Peak

Copper Peak (8,964ft)

Eric Gilbertson

July 19, 2018

I had just climbed the Dark-Bonanza traverse with Duncan on July 18, and tagged Martin Peak before returning to our bivy site at Holden Pass for the night. We got up around sunrise and were soon descending down the climbers trail towards Holden Lake. Two climbers met us on the way up, and they were planning to climb Bonanza. We gave them some beta on the route we took, then continued down to Holden Lake. From the lake a good trail led all the way down the Holden Village at the valley bottom.

Holden’s claim to fame is that it’s the most isolated community in the lower 48 states. It is not connected by roads to the outside world. The standard way to get there is to take a ferry from Chelan to the Lucerne landing site, then take a 1-hour bus ride to the village. The village is at the site of an old copper mine. When the mine was decommissioned the land and buildings were transferred to a Lutheran group, and now the small village is mainly a Lutheran retreat area. As far as I know there are no real permanent residents of Holden. Instead people come and visit for weeks or months at a time.

We reached the trailhead from Holden Lake and started walking on a dirt road towards the village. We soon encountered a small building where hiking gear was rented out. There was a map of the wall for the hiking trails in the area, and I found the correct route to get to the Copper Peak trailhead.

Duncan was heading back to Seattle, so we parted ways there as he walked into town to catch the bus down to the

ferry dock, and I headed for the trailhead. I crossed Railroad Creek on a foot bridge, then walked on a gravel road down the stream, past the naturalized site of the old copper mine.

At the copper basin trail I turned up into the woods, and ditched my extra overnight gear under some bushes. My plan was to hike Copper as a day trip, then return and camp somewhere near Holden that night. I continued climbing up switchbacks through a recent burn zone, passing a few other hikers also ascending. Eventually I reached Copper Basin after a few hours, and was treated to a great view of Copper and the east face of Fernow.

The meadow was pretty buggy, and I quickly crossed Copper Creek on a log at the edge of the meadow and started traversing on the 5600ft contour. I followed occasional game trails, then reached the edge of a burn zone. The ground was very dusty and numerous burned logs had recently fallen. There was no undergrowth, though, so the bushwhacking wasn’t too difficult. I generally did a rising rightward traverse below some cliffs, then exited the burn zone through some larches to reach a stream.

I had been carrying some extra food that I didn’t want to stash with my gear at the trailhead, and here I found a big boulder to stash it on that marmots probably couldn’t reach. I continued hiking up the edge of the stream that drains from the snowfields on the east face of Copper. I scrambled up talus, then slabs, then donned my crampons to ascend a big snowfield.

I eventually reached a bench where I could traverse right, leaving the snowfield and gaining the skyline east ridge of Copper. At the ridge I scrambled up the rocks, then traversed right again at the next bench, just below the snowfield. It was tempting here to go straight up the snowfield to the obvious summit, but I’d read that this route requires some exposed and sketchy climbing up the cliffs on the top of the snowfield.

The easiest route, which I followed, was to traverse to the far right side of the snowfield, then scramble up 3^rd class

terrain to gain the northeast ridge of Copper. The northeast ridge is mostly 3^rd class all the way to the summit, with only one short exposed section of 4^th class.

At the summit I was treated to a great view of a massive wall of clouds pummeling into Dome and Sinister to the west. Luckily the clouds were dissipating before they reached me, though. The summit register was vintage 1979, and was in pretty tough shape. There was also one of the special playing cards in the register, as tends to be the case in the less popular summits, I’ve noticed.

I soon downclimbed my route, glissading as much as possible in the snow. I made it back to Copper Basin and hiked down to the trailhead by 7pm. Duncan had brought the stove back with him, so I was left with just dry food for dinner. I had a feeling there might be some food available in Holden, so hiked in to town. They have a cafeteria, but I had missed dinner. Some nice people said I could eat some cereal there, though, and pay for it in the morning when the building was staffed.

I ended up eating four bowls of cheerios for dinner, then hiked back into the woods towards Holden Lake and camped just inside the national forest boundary. The next morning I had a big breakfast at the cafeteria in Holden and bought a ticket on the bus down to Lucerne. The plan was to meet up with Katie at Lucerne on the next ferry heading in, and then we’d go climb Tupshin, Flora, and Devore over the next few days.

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