Silver Moon and Ramble Peak

Silver Moon (8,252ft) and Ramble Peak (7,631ft)

May 14-15, 2022

22 miles skiing, 13 miles biking

Eric and Josh

Josh flew in to town for the weekend and we wanted to climb some top 200 peaks where the weather was dry. Unfortunately this appeared to be one of the wettest weekends this year, with no obvious big blue holes in the mountains. We opted to try to stay high and east, so at least the precipitation might be snow instead of rain, and there might be slightly less precipitation.

Highway 20 had just opened and we planend to try for Silver Moon and Gilbert Peaks. We would follow the loop that Fred Newman had done in a previous spring, which sounded like a great idea. The plan was to drop a bike off at the hairpin turn, then drive down to the Cedar Creek trailhead. We’d then go up cedar creek, hit the peaks, and loop back to highway 20, then bike back to the car.

I picked up Josh at the airport Friday afternoon and we soon made it up to Highway 20. There was a small six-car capacity plowed pullout and I pulled over in the one available spot and locked the bike up in the woods. The weather had been sunny that day and I bet a lot of skiers were out for opening weekend of the road. We then continued down to the Cedar Creek trailhead and parked for the night.

Saturday morning we were up and moving by 5am, just when it was light enough to not need headlamps. Josh was bringing snowshoes and I brought skis. The first few miles of trail were melted out but by 4,400ft the snow got continuous around the area where the burn zone ended. We switched to skis and snowshoes and I packed up my trail runners to carry the rest of the route. It had been lightly drizzling in the morning and now it changed to snow showers. The weather was supposed to clear a bit in the afternoon, and I hoped it would clear when we went above treeline.

Around 4,600ft directly below Silver Moon we ditched our overnight gear under a boulder and started up the SE face. The steep areas were melted out and we had to boot, but by 5,600ft the snow became continuous and we continued on skis and snowshoes. We eventually reached tarn 7141, and unfortunately it was still snowing and mostly whiteout.

I had read from reports from Fletcher and Matt on nwhikers that there were two gullies to get from the tarn through a cliff band to the summit ridge, and the right one was the best. But in a whiteout navigation was difficult.

I was still hopeful the clearing would happen, so we climbed up a steep snow slope above the (frozen) tarn to the highest tree above, then ditched skis and snowshoes there. At this point we were close enough to the cliff that the whiteout thinned and I could barely make out two gullies. The rightmost one looked like it continued to the summit ridge, perhaps, so we went for that one.

I led the way kicking steps with crampons on and was happy to have both an ice ax and my whippet. The slope was very steep, but soon eased and we got to the southeast ridge. From there I kicked steps up to the false summit and then around to the left.

The summit loomed a mere 150ft beyond, but there was an exposed knife edge ridge in between. It would have been fine to solo in the summer, but with it covered in ice and snow and me climbing in ski boots and crampons soloing didn’t seem wise. It was also Josh’s first alpine climb.

I’d brought my 30m rope and light rack, and built an anchor at the edge of the knife edge. Josh then belayed me across. There was one interesting move where I au-chevaled a down-sloping boulder, but otherwise it was not bad. I had tied one end of the rope to the anchor, and I just barely reached a big boulder near the summit. I slung the boulder and tied the end of the rope to that. Then Josh clipped onto the rope with a prussik and climbed across.

This seemed like the safest approach since it was only one short pitch, and this would prevent the follower from penduluming in the traverse. Amazingly, as Josh was climbing across the whiteout subsided and we were treated to views of surrounding peaks passing in and out of clouds. Silver Star loomed to the west, and Shelokum and Abernathy to the southeast.

Josh made it over and we took a bunch of pictures. I dug around but couldn’t find the summit register under all the snow and ice. I stayed for a while taking more pictures, but soon the whiteout returned. Somehow we had timed absolutely perfectly that the big blue hole passed over us just as we topped out.

Josh climbed back first, then belayed me back. We packed up the rope and then carefully downclimbed the route. The slope angle was steep enough that my knees got in the way climbing down, which made things a little awkward.

We soon made it back to the ditched gear and I strapped my skis on. I made awesome turns down to tark 7141, then waited for Josh to catch up. I think I’ve convinced him to take up backcountry skiing or splitboarding now.

I skied down to the edge of snowline, then booted back to our stashed gear. There was a set of semi-fresh bear prints nearby, and we luckily had decided to carry all our food with us and nothing was disturbed.

The snow was continues past the boulder and we continued up the trail, making a few tricky stream crossings. By 7:30pm we were at the last stream crossing below the pass to north creek, and we decided to camp there for the night.

We were asleep by sunset, but would need to get up early the next morning. Given the need to get  to the airport Sunday night, we had to nix Gilbert from the plans. The weather was supposed to be no precipitation until mid afternoon, though, so we would still be able to follow roughly the planned route back.

Sunday we got up at 3am and it was lightly drizzling. I don’t think it had gotten below freezing all night. The precipitation would continue for the next 12 hours, so it seems all the weather models got that forecast wrong.

I led the way up to the pass, and navigation got easier once sunrise hit around 5am (even from behind the rain clouds). We found a way around the cornices to the top of the pass, and were blasted by wind. The rain had changed to snow by then and I switched to downhill mode on my skis.

I side slipped down some steep slopes, then had to boot a bit before hitting more continuous snow. I made a descending traverse to the west, and we eventually interesected the trail. By then the precipitation had changed to a moderately heavy rain.

We pushed on to North Lake, and that would indeed be a nice place to camp. I could vaguely make out the huge cliffs of the NW face of Gilbert hiding behind the clouds, though the whiteout was thick. We weaved our way up between cliff bands aiming for the col between points 7483 and 7414. Luckily there was a gap in the cornices at the notch and I was able to skin all the way to the crest.

By then the rain had changed back to snow, and we were hit with another blast of wind. The whiteout was thick and we could just see a hundred or so feet, but navigation on the ridge would be simple. The ridge was icy, though, so I switched to crampons.

We continued from there easily up to the summit of Ramble, though were sure to stay away from the cornices on the NE face. We descended down the west ridge to a small rocky pinnacle, then dropped down the notch to the right just before the pinnacle.

Finally the conditions were favorable again for skiing, though by now the snow changed back to rain. I skied down from there while Josh followed on snowshoes. We hit the valley bottom around 5,800ft and then continued up to the north.

Soon I came across skin tracks, which was our first sign of other people the whole trip. I figured they were from skiers doing a tour on Saturday when the weather was a little bit better. This seemed to mark the end of the unknown and new navigation component of the trip. From here I knew we could just follow the tracks back to highway 20. It was a little disappointing to feel less remote, but with all the rain I was certainly looking forward to getting back to a warm change of clothes.

We continued back up to the pass below Wallaby, then skied down the other side. The turns were actually pretty fun with the slushy layer on top, kind of like wet corn.

After the slope angle eased we decided I would blast off ahead to try to save time retrieving the truck. I beelined it back and got to highway 20 in about 10 minutes. I’d previously skied this area in May last year and in February this year (accessing by snowmobile), so was familiar with the route.

I got back to the pullout at 12:40pm, and interestingly there were three other vehicles there. One truck was parked sideways and taking up three spots. If this opening weekend day had been sunny I bet people would have been pretty mad at one vehicle taking up nearly half of the only parking area near the hairpin, but in the pouring rain I guess nobody complained.

I trudged through the snow and retrieved my bike, then put my pack on and headed down. I didn’t want to leave any gear there since highway 20 is well-known for having car breakins (including mine last May).

The ride was quite cold and wet, blasting down the road in pouring 40F rain and not generating any body heat by pedaling. I made good time, though, and after a short uphill pedal I got to the truck just before 2pm.

I quickly loaded up, changed into my spare set of dry clothes, and then drove back to pick Josh up. A few other skiers were arriving at the pullout, also soaked from the rain. We quickly loaded up and headed out by 2:30pm, with ample time for Josh to make his flight out.

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