Gilbert Mountain (8,023ft) and Lookout Mountain (5,515ft)
On the summit of Gilbert
June 4, 2022
I had one last weekend in Washington before I leave for the summer, and it looked like I could squeeze in one more top 200 peak. The weather looked marginal everywhere, but probably the least marginal east of Washington Pass. Gilbert Mountain is one of my remaining top 200 peaks in that area and is the only one that makes sense if the weather is not great.
I had planned to hit Gilbert a few weeks ago after Silver Moon, but it didn’t work out that time. Saturday I figured I’d try again. I planned to go directly up the south face, which worked for Fletcher and Riley last year.
The route
Steven and Selena were interested in joining. Friday night we drove to the end of the Twisp River road. I was expecting there to be a lot of blowdowns to clear out, based on my experience on Eightmile Road a few weeks ago, but someboday had already cleared them. By midnight we made it to a gate a half mile from the Road’s End campground. The road was closed beyond there due to hazard trees. So we slept there in our vehicles.
Sunday we got moving at 5am. Steven and I had brought mountain bikes in case something like this happened, so we biked up while Selena walked. We locked our bikes up at the small campground and then bushwhacked up to the trail. We followed the trail for perhaps a quarter mile and then started heading straight up the south face. Steven led the way through some bushes, but soon the terrain opened up considerably.
Biking up
We picked our way up melted faces and rocky ridges, occasionally scrambling up minor rock bands. Around 7,000ft we hit continuous snow and transitioned to crampons and mountaineering boots. I put on my ascent plates, which are designed for steep postholing like this where snowshoes don’t work well. I led the way making quick progress. This is the first time I’ve gotten to test out my ascent plates and they are very effective. I was probably moving about 2 times as fast as if I were postholing without them. I think they’ll come in very handy this summer on expeditions.
The snow ended just below the summit ridge, and we ditched the ascent plates and snowshoes there. We then scrambled up to the ridge, then followed the ridge west, scrambling around some fun gendarmes. By 11am we reached the summit.
Climbing up the snow
Unfortunately it was stuck in the clouds, but we waited a while hoping for a clearing. We managed to find the register, and were the first ones to sign in since last October when Luke and Brian were there.
The clouds never left, so we eventually descended. We plunge stepped down snow to avoid the down scrambling, then picked up our snowshoes and ascent plates. We made quick time descending back down the snow and the south face the same way we’d come, and made it back to the road around 1pm. We had gotten lucky and it hadn’t rained on us during the whole hike.
The trip had gone a bit faster than expected, mostly because the road had unexpectedly been cleared out from all the trees. To fill the afternoon we decided to climb Lookout Mountain, a peak near Twisp that wouldn’t take too long and looked fun.
Lookout Mountain
We followed Steven up a windy dirt road to around 4,500ft to park. On the drive it started raining pretty hard, but let up when we reached the trailhead. Our timing was perfect that day. Steven and I mountain biked up the trail while Selena walked behind. We were all about the same speed since the trail was steep, and higher up Steven and I just pushed the bikes up.
There was a lookout tower on top, but unfortunately there were still no views as we were stuck in dense clouds. We waited around a while, but eventually gave up and headed down. The descent was very fun on the bikes. I tend to only ride my mountain bike on dirt roads in the spring to get around gates, but trail riding is much funner. We soon reached the lot, and Selena caught up not long after. By then it was late enough to not consider tagging any more peaks, and we all started our drives home.
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