The Needles

The Needles (8,160ft)

Nick on the summit

Sept 4, 2021, 6:30am – 3pm

Eric and Nick

We were looking for a technical top 200 day trip outside of fire closure zones and The Needles (also called Big Methow Needle) sounded fun. This peak is a rock spire near Washington Pass with about three pitches of climbing up to ~5.7. It’s not too popular, probably because of the bushwhack approach, and has only seen perhaps two dozen ascents since its first ascent in 1968. Adam Walker wrote an excellent summitpost page about the climb, and we followed this route.

The route

Friday night we slept at a pullout near the cutthroat trailhead and Saturday morning we parked at a pullout just south of Pine Creek on highway 20. I made certain to put everything leftover in the car into the top carrier so nothing was visible, since I’ve had my window smashed in the past and gear stolen off highway 20. We crossed the road and started bushwhacking up and right towards Pine Creek. After about half an hour we stumbled upon the abandoned trail that parallels Pine Creek. It may have been maintained by hunters in the past, though hasn’t seen any maintenance in the past decade it appears.

We followed the trail, occasionally losing it, to around 4,400ft, where it disappeared. There we bushwhacked down to Pine Creek, crossed, and bushwhacked through some slide alder on the other side. We then paralleled the creek, following occasional game trails and bushwhacking through some slide alder. We eventually got past the slide alder-choked avy path to open forest and went straight up the slope. From there the travel was quick and easy.

At the base of the summit pyramid

Higher up the slopes at times got slabby or had slippery scree, but progress was quick. We soon topped out on the southwest ridge and followed the ridge to the base of the summit pyramid. Most climbs of The Needles seem to have been early season when a deep snowfield covers the bottom 20ft or so of the summit pyramid, allowing climbing to start up rather high. I hadn’t actually heard of any ascents in september or later, and I’d read one group had bailed in July after encountering the snow too shallow, leaving a difficult stretch of rock climbing at the base. So we were anticipating climbing potentially more difficult than 5.7 in late season conditions.

The snow was completely melted out when we got there, exposing more climbing than we’d seen in route pictures. But it didn’t look too bad. Unfortunately my fingers were still recovering from frostbite from 3 weeks earlier on Pik Pobeda in Kyrgyzstan, and I was a bit nervous to lead. I’d be climbing in gloves and my finger tips were still a bit sensitive. But luckily Nick was happy to do the leading. The doctor had just told me the best way to strengthen the skin on my fingers was to use them, so rock climbing was surprisingly helpful in the healing process.

The first pitch

The first pitch was a bit steep, with the crux move wriggling around a bulge, but there were good gear options and my fingers did ok following. We climbed up and slightly right to a big ledge with a rap anchor under a boulder for about 25m. This was probably around 5.7. Next we continued up and slightly right to another smaller ledge at a slung horn rap anchor. This pitch was around 25m and low 5th. From this anchor we traversed left to the end of the ledge, then climbed up a crack that some parties lay back to climb. I just used the crack for my left hand and left foot and pushed on the right face with my right hand, so didn’t need to lie back. This was probably mid 5th class for 20m to a slung boulder rap anchor. Finally we did a short 10m 4th class pitch to the summit block by 11am.

The summit was really just big enough for one person at a time, so we took turns going up from an anchor at the ridge. This is one of the older registers I’ve seen in the cascades, going back to 1968 and still in excellent condition. I think this is related to the fact that this is a very seldom-climbed peak, and the register is in a solid ammo box.

Summit panorama

We took a food break, then downclimbed the 4th class bit to the next anchor. From there we did three rappels with our 60m rope all the way to the base. There was still plenty of daylight left, so we decided to tag the slightly shorter east peak. Interestingly, the USGS quad incorrectly shows the east peak as slightly taller, when in reality the east peak is 8,140ft and the

Hiking back down

west peak is 8,160ft. The east peak is just a class 3 scramble, and we were soon on the summit. We noticed some low smoke from the cedar creek fire over near silver star, but otherwise the views were open and unobstructed.

After a short break we headed back down, following our same ascent route. It was a bit tricky picking up the trail again on the south side of Pine Creek, but we eventually found it. The quality improved as we descended, and this time we followed it all the way until it disappeared about 100ft before highway 20. It turned out we were parked a ways from this spot, so we had to road walk a quarter mile or so back to the car by around 3pm.

For reference, the trail starts near some chainsawed stumps about 100ft before the start of the guardrail south of Pine Creek. There aren’t any really good pullouts to park there, though, but maybe you could squeeze a car on the sloped shoulder nearby.

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