Tieton, Ives, Old Snowy, Devils Horns, Bear Creek Mtn

Tieton (7,768ft), Ives (7,920ft), Old Snowy (7,880ft), Devils Horns (7,040ft), Bear Creek Mtn (7,337ft)

Eric Gilbertson

26 miles, 10,500ft gain

Oct 16, 3:30am – 6:30pm

Southern Washington looked like it had some of the driest weather forecast for Saturday so I decided to climb a bunch of 7,000ft peaks in the Goat Rocks wilderness. I’d already climbed Gilbert and Goat Citadel in late November 2019, but there were quite a few other interesting peaks in the area. I was intrigued by the idea of making a big above treeline loop to hit six peaks.

I’d read that Eric E and Dustin W had hiked the ridge from Bear Creek Mtn to Tieton, and I saw a trail went from Old Snowy north all the way to the Scatter Creek trailhead on the north side of the wilderness. I’d also read Selena and Jake had traversed from Old Snowy to Big Horn on the ridge. If I could just link the ridge from Tieton to the ridge near Big Horn then I could make a big 26-mile loop from Scatter Creek, with over half the loop being ridge runs above treeline. The terrain looked doable on the topo map, so I decided to give it a try. Worst case if I got cliffed out I could always bail down to the North Fork Tieton River and bushwhack back to the trailhead.

NOHRSC was showing a decent amount of snow above treeline in the area, so I decided to go in hiking boots with micro spikes, gatiers, and my whippet. I slept at the scatter creek trailhead Friday night and was moving by 3:30am Saturday morning. The quad showed trail 1128 going up to Pinegrass Ridge, but apparantly the trail has been abandoned for a while. The trail started out in good shape along the north fork tieton river, but got hard to follow once it started ascending the slopes to the east.

I think the darkness didn’t help with nagivation. I generally followed the trail, but sometimes lost it in all the blowdowns, and lost it for good once snowline started at 6,000ft. By sunrise I emerged on the ridge south of Pinegrass Ridge Peak and followed the ridge south. The terrain was open enough that I didn’t bother trying to find the trail 1130 just below the ridge. I stumbled across some fresh mountain lion tracks in the snow, and followed them to a craggy area of the ridge. Here it made more sense to go follow the trail.

I dropped a bit and found some boot prints in the snow on the trail.

This would certainly help with trail breaking and navigation. I followed the trail all the way to Bear Creek Mountain by 8am and stopped to admire the view. Rainier, Adams, and St Helens were all clearly visible in the nice sunny weather. This would be the last trail for me for much of the day.

I continued south along the ridge, mostly staying on the crest but occasionally dropping to the southeast to get around cliffs. I soon came to the base of Devils Horns, an interesting set of rock spires that rise a bit above 7,000ft. Unfortunately I hadn’t done any research on this peak and assumed it would be easy, but it appeared intimidating. I got closer, following the east ridge, and the SE face didn’t look too bad. There was a sort of gully with a lower angle face on the right with a bunch of knobby holds. I should have packed my poles but ended up scrambling up carefully while holding them, and quickly reached the top. I think it was probably 4th class.

At the top I saw an easier descent on the west face, which was low angle enough to kind of crab walk down facing out. I guess that could be considered class 3+, and probably a bit easier than the SE face, though a fall there would still be unadvisable. The ridge looked very saw-toothed from there, so I dropped straight south down a chossy gully and traversed below all the cliffs to regain the ridge. I continued along the ridge to a cliff band just below the Tieton massif and stopped there to fill up water. The south facing snowfields were melting in the morning sun and the drip rate was just fast enough for me to wait to fill up my 2L bladder.

I then kicked steps up deep snow to the ridge and followed the ridge to the summit around 11am. Awesome views opened up in front of me to Gilbert, Goat Citadel, and the Ives-Old-Snowy ridge I planned to follow. It looked very snowy, and I was a bit worried about my postholing speed. The previous ridge run had gone slower than I’d hoped, and I was hoping to get home at a reasonable hour that night. I cursed myself for not starting earlier that morning, but resolved to be more efficient and minimize breaks for the remainder of the day to stay on schedule.

I followed the ridge down southeast, which had some fun scrambling sections on snowy knife-edge rocks. It eventually turned into easy walking on scree and snowfields. I took a short break atop point 7386 and had great views across the Tieton Glacier up to Goat Citadel and Big Horn. The glacier looked much smaller than is shown on the quad, and it looked reasonable for me to traverse below it, then climb up a snow slope to gain the ridge near Ives. It appeared my loop might work after all.

I descended to the glacier, then started traversing. Unfortunately I had broken my microspike on one foot earlier in the day and it wasn’t very effective. So I had do be careful on the icy slopes to find snow patches and rocks to step on for my right foot. But I eventually made it across, then traversed quickly under an icy cliff and kicked steps up to the ridge.

The weather had been kind of windy up to then, but at the saddle below point 7478 I actually almost got knocked over by the gusts. I think it must have gotten funnelled into the notch somehow. Luckily the wind decreased a bit as I postholed and scrambled up point 7478. I dropped down the other side, then kicked steps more steeply up to Ives Peak by 2pm. The postholing was seriously

sapping my energy, and I hid behind a boulder on the summit long enough to quickly scarf down some food.

The north and northwest faces of Ives looked like cliffs, but I plunge stepped down the south ridge and downclimbed a bit to regain the northwest ridge. From there I skirted around some rock spires, then regained the ridge. I postholed past an interesting arch, then crossed onto the northeast side briefly and made a final scramble up Old Snowy by 2:30pm. From there I would in theory be following trail the rest of the way back to the car, but the snow-covered trail up on the ridges was not super helpful.

I descended down to the PCT, and interestingly saw two other hikers making their way up from the south. I think they were going for Old Snowy. I continued following the PCT northbound. It was nice that I didn’t have to worry about poking through cracks between boulders underneath the snow, but I still had to do a lot of trail breaking on the ridge, so progress was still difficult. Whenever the trail traversed below cliffs on a steep slope and got smoothed over by snow my progress slowed while I carefully broke trail across.

Just before Elk Pass I took a shortcut and plunge stepped down a snowfield to a small  tarn at 6300ft. There I took my last 5-min food break for the day. That spot had excellent views of my full ridge run from Bear Creek Mtn around to Old Snowy. I followed the ridge down from the tarn, doing a few 3rd class moves around rock outcrops, and finally regained the PCT at a pass. From there it was an easy hike back to the car, which I reached at 6:30pm, approximately on schedule for returning home at a reasonable hour.

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