Unnamed Peak 5771

On the summit

March 16, 2025

Eric and Olly

4 miles skiing, 26 miles snowmobiling

It was the last weekend of winter and we really wanted to bag one more winter Bulger for the season, but major storms hitting the cascades meant snow conditions were not safe for any of my remaining Bulgers. So we instead decided to ski a sled-access peak not too far from Seattle as a day trip Sunday, when the storms would start easing. It needed to be below treeline with low-angle slopes to avoid avy terrain. I hadn’t ridden my snowmobile since using it to approach Glacier Peak a month earlier, so I was itching to use it again.

The route

Neither of us had been in the area around Mt Daniel in winter, and it had a 13-mile snowmobile approach, which sounded fun. So we picked an unnamed peak in the Alpine Lakes Wilderness near the end of FS 4330. This peak has a spot elevation of 5771ft on the quad, so I’ll call it Peak 5771. I don’t think it’s very popular, but it’s a fun and safe ski on a storm day.

Saturday evening we drove to the Salmon La Sac sno park near Cle Elum and slept in the truck overnight. We woke up to 4″ of fresh powder, and were soon loaded up and sledding up the road. The road was wooped out until the popular Gallagher road turnoff, then it got smooth and we hit 40mph. Around Scatter Creek it got melted out pretty bad at the creek crossing, but there was a thin snow bridge we got over (which won’t last much longer).

Peak 5771 in the background

By 8:30am we were at the Mt Daniel trailhead and started skinning up. The trees were nice and open and the fresh snow was deep, making for slow progress. We skinned up to Squaw Lake, then gained the ridge above and followed the ridge south to Peak 5771 by 3pm. There was about 2ft of fresh snow from the Saturday storm. The skies cleared by then and we had great views of Mt Daniel and Mt Jerry Garcia.

The ascent was only 2 miles and 2kft of gain, but took us 5.5 hours in the deep fresh snow. Good thing we didn’t try for any more ambitious peakbagging objectives. We had a fun ski down, with powder up high changing to mush in the trees below 4500ft on NE aspects.

Back at the trailhead a guy on a snowbike was waiting around to make sure we made it out ok. I think he was surprised to see a snowmobile unattended just sitting at the trailhead and wasn’t sure what was going on. I suspect not too many skiers make it into that zone in winter. We chatted with him for a while and thanked him for looking out for us. Then we had a fun ride back to the truck. It felt weird to be snowmobiling in the daylight, and to see someone else out on a winter trip.

Winter Bulgers season is now officially over for this winter. Stats for winter 2025:

11 Winter Bulgers climbed
7 Winter Bulgers bailed on
6 First winter ascents
3 Second winter ascents