Dark Peak, Bonanza Peak, and Martin Peak

Dark Peak (8,504ft), Bonanza Peak (9,511ft), Martin Peak (8,511ft)

Eric and Duncan

July 17-18, 2018

July 17 – Drive to Chelan, take Ferry to Stehekin, take bus to High Bridge, hike south on PCT 12.5 miles to Hemlock Camp, “bushwhack” up to the Dark Glacier and bivy

July 18 – Climb Dark Peak, traverse ridge to Bonanza, descend to Holden Pass, Eric tags Martin and returns to pass

Duncan had been eyeing the Dark-Bonanza traverse as a fun alpine climb for a while, and I wanted to climb a bunch of Bulger peaks near Lake Chelan, so we combined forces to do the traverse in mid July. The Dark-Bonanza traverse has only been

climbed a handful of times, but Blake Herrington lists it as one of his favorite adventure climbs in the back of his guidebook, and it looked like a lot of fun. As far as I’d researched, it’s been climbed about three times in the Dark-Bonanza direction, and once in the Bonanza-Dark direction. Blake rates it as 5.8+, though mostly 4^th and low 5^th class terrain on a long knife-edge ridge with great exposure to glaciers down below on both sides.

The traverse would in some ways be more difficult than a standard climb, because we didn’t plan to return the same way. We planned to climb Dark from Stehekin, traverse over to Bonanza, then descend to Holden. This meant we’d have to carry all our overnight gear on the entire climb, in addition to glacier gear for the approach and descent.

My gear was pretty old and heavy, so after I finished driving home from the Tower-Azurite-Golden-Horn trip with Matthew on Sunday, I made a last-minute REI trip on a rest day on Monday. I got an ultralight ice ax, pad, and sleeping bag, then when I got home I carefully sharpened by dull aluminum crampons. Weight saving would be critical if I wanted to move quickly and safely over long stretches of technical terrain up to 5.8+ carrying all my gear.

Duncan and I left Seattle Tuesday morning and caught the fast ferry in Chelan to Stehekin. We waited around the dock a bit, eating cookies and offering extra cookies to some PCT southbounders, before boarding the NPS bus to High Bridge.

At High Bridge we headed south down the PCT, hiking quickly on the well-graded trail. In a few hours we reached Swamp Creek, and paused to honor all the poor souls (including myself) who have approached Dark Peak via this creek. There used to be a maintained trail up Swamp Creek to near the Dark Glacier, but it has long since been abandoned and overtaken with thick slide alder and vine maple. For some reason most guidebooks and online resources still list this as the standard approach to climb Dark Peak.

I had attempted to climb Dark Peak with Katie back in August 2017 via this route. We battled our way through the jungle of Swamp Creek successfully, only to be turned back by sketchy late-season conditions on the Dark Glacier. Then we had to battle our way all the way back out again.

This time would be different. I got some excellent beta from Jake Robinson that there was a much easier approach to Dark Peak, which we planned to try. After our moment of silence at Swamp Creek we continued south on the PCT a few more miles to Hemlock Camp. Here we cut left into the woods and started ascending to the northwest ridge of

Dark Peak.

Amazingly the forest was basically completely open, with almost no undergrowth. I would hardly even call it bushwhacking, more like open forest walking. It was a steep 3,500ft climb, but we eventually popped out of the trees and hiked class 2 terrain up to the ridge, then dropped down to the snow on the other side. It was about 10pm by then and getting pretty dark, so we found an outcrop of rocks in the snow and stopped there for the night. We each leveled out an area, threw out our bivy sacks, and went to sleep.

The next morning we got up at sunrise and packed up our gear. I strapped the aluminum crampons onto my trail

runners, got out my ice ax, and we started walking across the Dark Glacier. It was still early enough in the season that crevasse danger was minimal, so we continued unroped through the styrofoam snow. By 8am we reached the top of the glacier, then took off crampons and continued a few more minutes on class 2/3 terrain to the summit of Dark Peak.

The weather looked good, and the ridge in front of us looked fun. We put on harnesses and walked past a few nice bivy sites on the summit plateau to the edge where the ridge officially started. Duncan had hiked in approach shoes and planned to climb in those, but I didn’t own approach shoes, so switched into my rock shoes at the edge of the plateau.

We started out on the right side of the ridge, mostly scrambling class 3 and class 3/4 terrain close to the crest. The

rock seemed to be more lichen-covered and loose on the right (west) side, and more solid with less lichen on the left (east) side. The left side had significantly more exposure down to the Company Glacier, while the right side was less steep. We generally stayed on the right side until the terrain started getting more exposed and we decided it was time for the rope.

We brought a 40m rope to save weight, and tied in to both ends. Duncan led out, weaving the rope around horns and putting in an occasional piece of gear, and then we continued simulclimbing. After about 3 ropelengths we switched places and I led another rope length until the terrain got easier just before point 8599.

There we unroped and scrambled the remaining ridge up to point 8599 to take a break. There was a cairn on top, but no summit register. From that peak we were able to scramble unroped on terrain that was mostly class 3 with some exposed class 4 sections, until we reached the broad northwest talus slopes of Bonanza.

We were both out of water then, but found a snow patch on the west side and were able to fill up. It was an easy hike and scramble up the talus field to the summit of the west peak of Bonanza, where we took another short break.

It appeared the crux of the route would be the traverse from the west peak to the true peak of Bonanza. The ridge was very sharp and very exposed on both sides, and also quite scenic. We roped back up and I took the lead. I wove the rope around horns and put a few pieces in, then we regrouped after two ropelengths of simulclimbing. Duncan crossed a snowslope and built another anchor below what appeared to be the crux of the route, just below the summit of Bonanza.

I belayed this section, and Duncan put in a micro traxion just above the crux at the end of the rope. He then made it a little farther to the summit and belayed me up to there. We definitely didn’t climb any sections of 5.8+ terrain, so

maybe we took a variation on Blake’s route. The only part we actually belayed instead of simulclimbing was maybe 5.6 I think, just below the summit.

The ridge was still really fun, though. It had continuous amazing views to both sides, fun scrambling, and some bits of climbing. The rock isn’t really that bad either, though maybe I’ve been climbing too many chossy peaks in the Cascades now so my standards are different.

In all the traverse took 6 hours from Dark to Bonanza, and we took a relaxing break on the summit. The descent would be tricky, though, since we were descending a somewhat complicated and exposed route that we had not ascended.

I’d loaded a GPS track, which helped a bit. We started by scrambling down the northeast ridge of Bonanza, then began downclimbing the east face following the line of least resistance. I would probably rate the terrain class 3+. It was sort of exposed, but not so much that you would fall far if you slipped.

We eventually reached some rap anchors and considered rappelling, but decided that the terrain in fact looked no more difficult than what we’d been soloing all day, so instead downclimbed to save time. We reached the head of the Mary Green Glacier and transitioned to crampons and ice axes. This glacier had some visible large crevasses and we decided to rope up.

Duncan led the way down, and we walked through the snow to the bottom of the glacier, following the GPS track I’d

loaded from peakbagger (I think from Brent Wiencke). That’s where navigation became difficult. I know the ascent route went up some rock slabs at the base of the glacier, but it was late in the day and the snow melt was creating streams covering all the slabs. It looked possible to descend, but would be dicey, especially since we didn’t really know the right route.

My GPS track went farther to skiers left, to a group of trees where I saw a rap anchor. Duncan scouted around for a good place to downclimb, but I didn’t feel safe downclimbing the wet mossy exposed rocks, so we decided to rappel. After backing up the anchor I rapped down, but unfortunately our 40m rope did not quite reach the bottom. A 60m rope definitely would have reached.

I stopped on a ledge that was about 15ft above the ground, unroped, and downclimbed the rest. Duncan followed, and from there we hiked easily down to Holden Pass. It was about 6:30pm by then, and we decided to camp there, hopefully high enough to avoid the worst of the mosquitoes.

There were still a few hours of daylight, though, so I decided to climb Martin Peak solo. I ditched most of my gear at the pass and started up the ridge. Martin is really close to Holden Pass, and the route just follows the west ridge all the way to the summit.

I hiked quickly up through grassy meadows, then skirted around the right side of some cliffs and scrambled back up to the ridge. The route is actually kind of complicated, and involves gaining the ridge up gullies, then scrambling on the right side, and repeating. I occasionally followed cairns, and occasionally added cairns so I could find my way back if I got benighted. The terrain was loose, but mostly third class and not exposed.

I finally got to a point just below the summit on the ridge where I was forced to climb up some 4^th class terrain, but it was short, the holds were good, and it wasn’t actually that exposed. I signed in at the summit register and got a great picture of sunset over the Dark-Bonanza ridge that I’d just climbed.

As I scrambled down I noticed a rap anchor just above the exposed spot, so I guess some parties do rope up for Martin. But it would really just be for that one short part at the top. I managed to follow my route all the way back down, reaching camp just after sunset around 10pm.

The bugs were kind of bad, but I crawled in my bivy sack and covered my face with my jacket and managed to get a pretty good sleep. The next mountain on the agenda would be Copper Peak the next day.

 

© 2018, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.