The Ark

The Ark (aka Rooster Mountain) 5,339ft

The transition to snow

April 14, 2019

I had attempted to climb The Ark in January 2018, but turned around at a freshly corniced ridge I didn’t feel safe soloing. This time I figured later in the spring perhaps it would be safer conditions. I drove out the Middle Fork Snoqualmie road Sunday morning and left the car at 8:30am heading up the Taylor River. The trail is an abandoned road, so I rode my mountain bike to speed things up.

Nearing the summit

It was raining almost the entire ascent and I got pretty soaked. I turned up Quartz Creek on another old road and rode and pushed my bike up to snowline around 3,400ft. The snow got too deep so I switched to snowshoes. Luckily it was cold enough that the rain falling from the sky had now changed to snow.

I broke trail up the basin from the end of the old logging road to the col on the south ridge of the ark. After gaining the col I followed the ridge up. This time the narrow corniced spot was much safer than in january and I proceeded without problems. I then gained the southwest ridge and turned right. This ridge was heavily corniced but was wide enough to proceed safely.

The summit block is supposedly third class, but it was covered in enough snow that I got to the top in snowshoes. I then followed my tracks all the way back to the bike and biked back down through the rain, reaching the trailhead by 2:30pm.

© 2019, egilbert@alum.mit.edu. All rights reserved.