Robinson Mountain – First Winter Ascent

Robinson Mountain (8,726 ft) – First Winter Ascent

Eric and Birkan

March 2-4, 2018

Robinson Mountain is one of the most accessible of the Washington hundred highest peaks in the winter, but it is still very hard to get to. A 5-hr drive from Seattle gets you to the Yellowjacket sno-park, which is 3 miles of hiking or skiing from the summer trailhead. Then it’s a full day of trailbreaking and bushwhacking just to get to base camp.

As far as I’ve researched, Robinson Mountain has not previously been climbed in winter. The previous earliest ascent had been in late April.

Birkan and I attempted a winter ascent of Robinson in January 2017, but were not successful. We snowshoed in to base camp, then made it high on the southeast ridge, but deep snow and 4^th class rock slowed us down too much to make the summit, and we turned around.

I attempted Robinson again in February 2018, and made it a bit farther along the ridge, but again turned around. The third attempt was going

to be different, though. Birkan was up for joining again, and we had learned from previous attempts. This time we would ski in and out to increase efficiency, and we would take a different ridge up from base camp to avoid most of the 4^th class rock sections. The new route also would avoid any avy terrain.

It looked like a weather window was in store for the weekend, so we left town Friday afternoon and made it to the Yellowjacket sno-park outside Mazama by 9pm.

On Saturday morning we left the car at 6:30am and skied the ½-mile of snow-covered road to the start of the snowmobile trail. From there we skinned up 2.5 miles of snowmobile trails to the start of the summer trailhead, and began breaking trail. The snow was mercifully more compact than in January 2017, and the skis helped us make faster progress than we had with snowshoes, but it was still tough going.

We skinned up Robinson Creek, and at the second bridge crossing turned right to ascend steeply up the side of Beauty Creek. After an hour or switchbacking we gained a thousand

feet and then started a rising traverse up the valley. We started following an opening in the trees that appeared to be an old trail, but eventually gave up finding it and continued bushwhacking.

Eventually we reached an open meadow below the southeast cirque of Robinson Mountain and started our last major ascent of the day. I knew the route well from the previous attempt a few weeks earlier, and had no trouble navigating. We skinned steeply up the slope, then the angle eased and we made it to a sheltered grove of trees near a small tarn at 6800ft, at around 5pm.

We soon pitched the tent, melted a few liters of snow, and went to bed by 7:30pm in anticipation of an alpine start the next morning.

It was a cold night, dropping to around 11F at camp, and I woke up shivering every few hours. I’d opted to go light

with my thin sleeping bag, but in hindsight probably should have brought my -20F bag.

We were up at 4am and moving by 5am in the dark. We skinned up as high as possible through trees on the ridge south of the tarn. This ridge looked considerably easier than the ridge north of the tarn, which is the one we had tried the previous year.

As the slope angle increased right near the ridgecrest Birkan ditched his skis, and I carried mine up on my back to the crest. We gained the crest just as the sun was illuminating the horizon. I planted the skis firmly in the snow, took out the ice ax, and we continued up steep snow on the ridge. This ridge was considerably easier than the one north of the tarn, because it was mostly wind scoured. This meant we were walking mostly on rock or ice instead of sinking in deep snow.

We made quick progress to the head of the cirque, then traversed left on gentle snow slopes. By now the wind had picked up, low-level clouds reduced visibility to 150ft or so, and it started snowing. The predicted weather window was not materializing. We continued nevertheless, because the whole route was on a ridge so navigation was quite easy.

After crossing a broad, flat stretch we ascended more, then turned left and skirted a few rock gendarmes, before arriving at the crux. The rock step in front of us looked intimidating. It was a 30-meter-long steep knife-edge section of narrow rock with exposure on both sides, covered in rime ice and snow. I’d seen pictures of people scrambling

this section in the summer unroped, but I was certainly happy to have brought a

rope and rock gear for a winter ascent.

We kicked steps up to the base of the crux, then I slung a boulder and clipped us both in. Birkan belayed me up as I

pushed snow off the rocks over the cliffs to the sides. The snow wasn’t deep enough to give an ice ax any purchase, but was enough so you couldn’t be sure if your foot would stick in it or it would just sluff off the side. I dug down enough to find a few cracks to stick some cams in, and eventually reached a gradual snow slope above the crux.

I built an anchor there after excavating a small rock horn, then belayed Birkan up. We put away the rope here, and then marched around the corner and postholed easily up to the summit.

It was cold, windy, snowing, and socked in with clouds, but we were excited to have made it. After about 5 minutes we turned around and plunge stepped back to the rock rib. I built an anchor to belay Birkan down, and he clipped in gear on the way. At the bottom, he slung the same rock, then belayed me as I carefully downclimbed.

We were relieved to be done with the crux, and followed our steps back down along the ridge. The sky cleared briefly at one point to give us a view back toward the summit, but then the wind, snow, and low visibility soon returned.

Back at the end of the ridge I put my skis on and we both skied down to camp. We were packed up by 2:30pm, and started an amazing ski down.

We had some fun powder skiing up high, then difficult crusty snow skiing down to Beauty Creek. From there we traversed through the woods following our tracks, then had even more difficult crusty snow skiing down to the trail at the second bridge.

From there we put skins on and skinned back to the car by 7:30pm. The drive

home was a bit longer than expected since heavy snow caused I-90 to be closed at Snoqualmie Pass for a few hours, but we eventually

returned to Seattle around 2am.

Check out the following videos Birkan took:

Video: cresting the ridge at sunrise

Video: downclimbing the crux pitch

Video: skiing down from the summit ridge

Video: skiing down from base camp

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