WyNorth

WyNorth (8,202ft)

Eric Gilbertson

Sept 19-20, 2021

60 miles, 17kft gain

It’s been a few months since I last used my packraft and I was looking to involve it in a mountaineering trip. Back in 2018 Katie and I had used packrafts to cross Lake Chelan from Stehekin to access Tupshin, Devore and Flora. I had never heard of anyone doing this before, but it totally makes sense in my mind. This shortcut saves 8 miles of road walking and hiking each way, so a 16

mile savings round trip. Even if you take the park bus and/or hitchhike the road section, the packraft shortcut still saves 7 miles round trip of trail hiking. Since then the idea seems to have caught on with at least a few other hikers for accessing those remote Bulger peaks.

There are a few top 200 peaks in the Devore Creek area that I figured I could use my packraft to access for a fun trip. I only had two days, though, and didn’t want to be limited by the ferry schedule to Stehekin. It would be pretty disappointing to have to turn around shortly below a summit just to catch the ferry. But I was playing around on Caltopo and discovered Stehekin is accessible by trail from the Twisp River road with a 16 mile hike up war creek and down purple pass. So I planned to hike in and out this way and be completely on my own schedule.

For peaks I would go for some subset of WyNorth, Enigma and Castle depending on the weather. A rain and snowstorm was supposed to go through Sunday and likely clear by Monday, so there was some uncertainty in what I would be able to get up.

I camped out at the War Creek trailhead Saturday evening and was up and moving by 1am Sunday. I hoped the early start would give me a chance to summit a peak or two that evening before sunset if the weather held. Though the days are getting a lot shorter now, which makes things difficult. The war creek trail has luckily been completely logged out, but unfortunately it hasn’t been brushed out. Long stretches are covered in fireweed and blueberry bushes, and at times it’s hard to even see ones feet while walking. More problematic is that the brush was covered in water from rain that night and I got thoroughly drenched from my waist down.

It was kind of miserable pushing through the bushes being cold, soaked, and tired at 2am, but I knew I would appreciate the effort if it meant I could get up a remote peak for sunset. About 5 miles in I stumbled across a cabin in the woods. It was unlocked and had a visitor sign in book, a wood stove, and tons of firewood. I had never heard about this cabin, but I bet it would make for an awesome winter overnight trip – snowmobile in to war creek trailhead and ski or snowshoe just 5 miles of mostly flat trail in there.

After the cabin the trail went through some more burn zone, but eventually made it into unscathed forest higher up. By sunrise I reached Lake Juanita and was treated to yellow larches covered in a light dusting of fresh snow. I think they’ll be peak color very soon up at that elevation. I then reached Purple Pass and descended what felt like about a hundred switchbacks down 5500ft to Stehekin. It was 9am, so I had beaten the first ferry by a few hours and the area was pretty quiet.

It’s possible to paddle directly from the ferry landing area to weaver point to access the devore creek trail, and I was planning to do that if the winds were calm as predicted. But as I stopped to take a break a rain squall passed over with wind strong enough to cause whitecaps in the lake. The wind would be a headwind for me if I started at the ferry dock. I wasn’t sure how long the wind would last, so instead I started walking on the road uplake to the point closest line of sight to weaver point (a point ENE of weaver point). That way the wind wouldn’t quite be a headwind, the crossing would be shorter, and I could always just hug the shoreline the whole way if I wanted to stay out of the wind (though that would increase the distance).

I found a good put-in at the side of the road and started inflating my boat. Luckily the squall passed by then and the winds calmed considerably. As a safety precaution I brought my two inflatable cargo bags that I put gear in inside the cargo zip of the boat. These have two benefits – they keep gear out of the way of paddling, and they also keep the boat afloat in the unlikely event of an air leak of the main compartment. (Note – I’ve never had an air leak in six years of paddling on many expeditions so it’s very unlikely with the tough alpacka denali llama).

The sun soon came out and I paddled across the lake. With the low wind it went by pretty quick and I soon reached Weaver Point. I had probably saved at least two hours compared to hiking around (the buses weren’t even running at that hour and it was too early for any cars on the road to hitchike from). I packed up the boat, stashed it in one of the bear boxes, and continued up the trial. It felt good to have a lighter pack without all the paddling gear.

I had only drank 1 liter of water all morning since it was wet and cold while I was hiking, so I stopped at Devore creek to purify some water. But there I noticed my aquatabs were missing! They must have fallen out while I was packing. I definitely didn’t want to drink untreated water, and didn’t want to paddle back to stehekin to try to buy some. That would take too much time and diminish my chances of summitting a peak at sunset. But I had a jetboil and some extra fuel, so I decided to just boil my water for the rest of the trip. The jetboil is fast enough that it would only add a few minutes per water stop.

I quickly boiled a liter of water, then hung it outside my pack to try to cool it off quickly. I also changed out of my soaked socks, hung the wet ones on my pack to dry, and changed into my spare pair of dry socks. I then hiked up the Devore Creek trail. The trail is in good shape, with no blowdowns, though some areas are very brushy. By about 2:30pm I reached the West Fork Devore Creek and had a decision to make. I really wanted to do Enigma and Castle Rock, but in order to get both I’d need to get at least one of them that evening. I didn’t want to try any of them at night since there could be navigation difficulties in the rain/snow and whiteout in the dark. I really wanted some visibility.

There wasn’t really enough time to get them both in the morning after sunrise and also get home to Seattle at a reasonable hour Monday night. If I could get Castle Rock that evening it could work. But unfortunately as I was considering my options it started raining, and the rain kept intensifying. All the summits got socked in the clouds. I waited around under the shelter of a tree until 3:30, when the rain turned to drizzle. It seemed like that sort of weather would likely continue through the night, but by waiting around down there it was now even more of a stretch to try to reach the Castle Rock summit before sunset. If I didn’t get Castle Rock and only got Enigma, I’d basically have to come back and redo them both since the route to Castle Rock goes right by Enigma.

It seemed to make the most sense to instead go for WyNorth. I could camp up high enough that I’d have time to tag the summit in the morning and hike out. I had found excellent beta from Matt B, Milda, Eric E, and Fred on nwhikers and planned to follow their route. Based on Fred’s advice I picked the north side of the creek and hiked up mostly open meadows. The south side indeed looked unpleasant. I skirted a cliff band at 6500ft on the left, then hiked up to a nice flat area at 7000ft just before sunset.

The summits were socked in with cloud level around 7400ft, and it started snowing about then. Summitting that evening seemed unwise, so I pitched my tent next to some yellow larches and quickly threw my gear in to get out of the snow. I boiled a liter of water for some ramen, then a liter of water for drinking, and hoped I had enough fuel for a few more liters the next day.

I tried to go to sleep at sunset, but was not very successful. It was snowing and quite windy all evening, and I was concerned my summer tent might get flattened (this summer my tent on Lenin Peak in Kyrgyzstan got flattened in a storm and the memory was fresh in my mind). The wind seemed to make everything colder. I had just brought my skimpy summer sleeping bag, and my pants were wet from hiking up in the rain. I wanted to sleep in them to dry them out, but perhaps that was not a great idea. I ended up doing lots of situps, forced shivering, and eating snacks, and eventually managed to get some sleep.

In the morning I poked my head out of the tent at sunrise, but the mountain was still socked in the clouds just above me and it was still snowing. I considered bailing, but decided to give it another hour. Monday was forecast to be sunny, but maybe the storm got delayed moving out. By 7am the snow had stopped and visibility had improved slightly, so I decided to give it a go. I put on all my layers, put microspikes on my trail runners, and started up.

I hiked up to a bench at 7400ft then turned left and followed the crest of the northeast ridge of Wynorth, following Matt B’s route. It was a bit slippery going over thinly snow-covered talus to gain the ridge, but the ridge itself was heather down low and class 3 scrambling up higher. Around 7800ft I reached a steeper part of the ridge that required a bit of caution scrambling up some snowy kitty-littered rock steps, but above that I reached easier talus and scree all the way to the north ridge of WyNorth.

I crossed over to the west side of the ridge and scrambled snowy class 2/3 rock contouring around the north summit. I’d read that Fay Pullen surveyed this point to be slightly lower than the true summit. At the notch between the summits I downclimbed a gully, then traversed talus and scree to the true summit. It looks like it’s surrounded by cliffs, but I wrapped around the west side to the southeast side and scrambled up easy class 2 to the summit by 8:30am.

The summit was still socked in the clouds, but I caught fleeting glimpses of the Company Creek valley below to the west. I found the register but there was no writing implement in it. Maybe that’s why there haven’t been any sign ins in the past 5 years. It was later in the morning than I’d hoped, so I only spent a few minutes up there before retreating. This time navigation was easy since I could just follow my tracks in the snow.

I scrambled back to the ridge, then back down to my camp by 9:15am. I quickly packed up and headed back down to the Devore Creek trail. By now the summits had finally cleared out and it looked like the snow was melting off. But I had a long ways to hike out so unfortunately couldn’t stay for any more peaks.

I made good time down to the lake, and quickly inflated my boat and put in back in the lake. It was 12:30pm and I had a decision to make. By my estimate if I paddled directly back to the ferry dock and hiked out I’d probably make it home by 2am at best. If I made a side trip to the bakery that would probably add an hour, so I’d be home at 3am. Both times were late enough they were basically equivalent, so of course I chose to go to the bakery.

From weaver point I paddled northeast to a grassy area with a picnic bench, then quickly packed up and walked up the road. The bakery had been pretty cleaned out by that hour in the afternoon, but I managed to get some excellent cinnamon rolls, blueberry cheese danishes, and ham and chees pastries. I ate outside with some PCT hikers, and a few people congratulated my for being in the home stretch. I let them know I wasn’t actually a thru hiker, though maybe some day it would be fun to do.

By 1:45pm I started hiking back out. I quickly made it to Stehekin just after the last ferry pulled out. The hike up to Purple Pass was difficult, likely because the paddling gear was wet and making my pack heavier. And I was loaded up with a few extra pounds of pastries for the hike out. By the time I reached the pass I had eaten all the pastries except one cinnamon roll I was saving for Katie. It took a lot of resolve to not finish it off.

The sun set as I passed over the pass, and I stopped at Juanita Lake to boil a liter of water. That emptied out the last of my fuel, so I’d have to make that liter last the next 10 miles. But I made good time down war creek and got to the car by 10:30pm. I scarfed down some pesto pasta and blueberry pie I’d stashed in the car, then nibbled on skittles the whole way home by 3:30am.

 

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