Lake Mountain Winter Ascent

Lake Mountain

First Winter Ascent

Feb 22, 2025

26-hour continuous push, 27 miles, 7700ft gain

Friday 5pm – Saturday 7pm

Eric Gilbertson and Branden Joy

Lake Mountain was one of my three remaining Pasayten Bulgers to climb in winter. I’ve already climbed it a few times in summer and fall, and even made an unsuccessful attempt in winter in 2024. On that trip I’d climbed nearby Monument Peak with Paul, but we ran out of time to tag on Lake as planned.

The peak is located in the middle of the Pasayten Wilderness north of Mazama, and the standard approach is to hike up to Pistol Pass, travese to Lake of the Woods, and scramble up the east face. The bridge across Eureka Creek on the route was out for many years, making it a challenging approach. I even used a packraft for that crossing on my first climb of Lake Mountain in June 2018. However, trail crew workers built a new bridge in 2022, and now the approach is much easier.

An alternative approach that avoids the Eureka Creek crossing is to start from Slate Pass, and scramble up the West face.

This weekend was a very tight weather window for a Winter Bulgers trip. An atmospheric river was forecast to hit Washington on Saturday and continue through Sunday. That would likely elevate avalanch risk and it would be a bad time to be in the mountains. But the Pasayten Wilderness area was forecast to get hit last, starting mid day Saturday.The snow conditions and weather would be acceptable until mid day Saturday in that area. Two of my remaining Bulgers in the region – Osceola and Carru – would require a multi-day trip approaching by snowmobiling up to Harts Pass. There would not be enough time to get those peaks and get out before the atmospheric river hit.

Lake Mountain, however, is closer and looked to be possible, if done in a continuous push. If we could start skiing up Friday evening and push through the night, we could potentially summit Saturday morning in the good weather and make it back out before the storm hit. We considered the Slate Pass approach since the skiing distance is slightly less, but that had the risk that if we got back to the snowmobile later than anticipated Saturday, we could get stuck there. The road to Slate Pass goes around Deadhorse Point, which is very prone to avalanches and would certainly slide Saturday evening, covering the road.

We decided to go for the Pistol Pass approach, since it would not require snowmobiling around Deadhorse point, and would be more flexible if we got delayed. That route requires parking at the Yellowjacket Sno park, then skiing one mile on a road to the Monument Creek trailhead. For that distance the snowmobile doesn’t really save time (since it takes time to load, unload, pack, and unpack gear on it), so we would just ski that distance. Interestingly, this is one of only a few Winter Bulgers that do not benefit from a snowmobile or boat approach. (St Helens, Rainier, and Snowfield are the only ones that have regularly-plowed roads to the standard trailheads).

Friday after work we drove out to Mazama and started skiing at 5pm. We followed the snow-covered Harts Pass road over the Lost River and just beyond the snow berm, then took a shortcut up through the woods. We soon intersected the Monument Creek trail, and amazingly found fresh ski tracks! This is one of only a few times I’ve ever encountered tracks from another party on a Winter Bulger. We made good time in the tracks, but then they turned around after less than a mile. Beyond that we would be on our own for trail breaking.

The snow was much less consolidated than I recalled during my last trip in that area in January 2024. This made me a bit concerned that my time estimates would be overly optimistic. I had estimated we would reach the summit at sunrise. But we had an extra buffer time of around 6 hours until the atmospheric river hit, so that would still be ok for us to get back down into the trees.

After a few hours we reached Eureka Creek and stopped to top off our water bottles. I recalled this was the last water source on the route in winter, so it was important to each have two full liters there. The bridge was in great shape, but had a 2 ft tall overhanging snow mushroom on top. This was overhanging and exposed enough that it was too sketchy to ski across. So we packed up our skis and I carefully inched my way over, kicking down the snow on the way.

On the other side we put the skis back on and followed the switchbacks steeply up. This section of trail in 2018 was basically abandoned and tough to follow, but since 2022 trail crew workers have done a great job of opening it back up. We had no trouble following it even with all the snow.

Trail breaking was challenging and we took turns. It had been snowing all evening, but gradually ended until we had a clear starry sky above us. We made steady progress up the south face until we gained the main ridge at 4400ft. From there the trees were open enough that it was hard to follow the trail, so we mostly just stayed on the ridge crest. We were careful to try to avoid going up and over little bumps on the ridge but instead go around. This would help us coming down so we could just follow our tracks and ski continuously down.

Around 2am we hit 6500ft and started our long traverse. The trail was easy to follow then, and we mostly stayed in the trees for the next few hours maintaining elevation around Pistol Peaks. By 4:30am I got hit with a wave of fatigue from sleep deprivation, and kept frequently munching on sugary snacks to stay alert.

By 5:30am, though, the sleepiness went away and I felt nice and alert. I think this is because I usually get up at 5:30am for work anyways, so my body was used to be awake at that hour. We started switchbacking up to Pistol Pass then, and by 6am reached the pass. There was a light breeze, but luckily nothing near the NWAC forecast ridgeline winds of 15-25mph. I think that forecast might have been for after the atmospheric river hit, which hadn’t happened yet.

We switched to ski mode and skied a mellow slope in the trees down the north side. We tried to make a very gradual traversing track that we could hopefully follow back up on the return to save ourselves the trouble of breaking trail. At the bottom we put skins on at 6800ft and started a gently-rising traverse at the edge of the trees along the base of some east-facing cliffs. It was by then light enough to no need the headlamps, though unfortunately the sky had clouded up.

We soon reached the base of the east face, and continued to a tree-covered slop that gained the east ridge. There was a thin wind-slab layer that was well-bonded and non-reactive, and it looked like the route was a go. We ditched the skis in the trees and continued up with me in ascent plates and Branden following in crampons. I kicked myself for forgetting my second pair of ascent plates to give to Branden, but we’d just have to make it work.

I took the lead breaking trail, generally staying in the trees and aiming for the East Ridge. It was slow going, but with the ascent plates it was still doable. Branden still sunk in, but was helped by my ascent plate tracks. I at times had to use my kneed to clear a primary path, then stomp down with my foot to get a good step. I eventually reached the east ridge, then generally followed that all the way to the summit.

I topped out at 9:45am, a bit later than hoped for. But I think that had the benefit of nailing the clear weather window. The wind was low and we had excellent views to the west of Monument, Blackcap, Carru, and a bunch of other mountains. There was a thick undercast in the Eureka Creek valley which made for a very scenic view. To the east the peaks were socked in the clouds, which seemed to be forming as the wind crossed over Lake Mountain. Looking down the south ridge the left side was clouds and the right side was clear, which was pretty neat. The sun even poked out overhead.

We hung out for ten minutes, then started down. I took off the ascent plates and proceeded in crampons, and we soon reached the skis. I think the sun had warmed up some of the snow-covered east-facing cliffs, since there were now small rollerballs over the snow. It also started getting kind of gloppy. We were very efficient and quickly skied back to just below Pistol Pass. In the shelter of the trees we then took out my jetboil and melted a few liters of water.

We then followed our tracks back up, and we luckily able to avoid more trail breaking. Back at Pistol Pass we had another fun ski descent back to the traverse, and then switched to skins. I was very worried about problematic glopping conditions with the sun heating up the powder snow, but by then the skies clouded up and it started snowing lightly. It was 1pm and the edge of the atmpospheric river was hitting us as scheduled. We were a bit delayed from my plan, but we were back in the safety of the trees so the snow was no problem.

The traverse went by quickly following our nice tracks, and back at the south ridge at 6500ft we transitioned back to ski mode. Descending the ridge was one of my favorite sections skiing out. It has nice open trees and we could generally follow our up tracks and make fun turns. A few times we had to side step up and over small hills, but these weren’t too bad. Down at 4000ft the trail got melted out enough that we decided to carry the skis and just posthole down. But that then got challenging enough that we switched back to skis. We ended up skiing the whole way back down to the bridge, so we got almost a full 4000ft ski descent from the end of the traverse, which was not too bad.

By then the snow had intensified and we were happy to not be on the summit any more. The forecast had been rain below 5000ft, but even down at 2500ft it was still snow, which was very nice. We took turns breaking trail back out, and reached the truck around 7pm for a 26-hour push. I then drove straight back to Seattle, through very heavy rain. The atmospheric river had definitely arrived as forecast. It was pooling up on the interstate enough that I had to go pretty slow, but eventually got home by 1am. The drive was a little more challenging than usual, since I’d been awake for around 44 hours by then, but skittles, red bull, and AC did the trick.

 

 

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