Distance: 7.3 mi.
Elevation Gain: 3800 ft.
Rodrigo had been looking to do this climb in wintery conditions for a while and we had some early season snow that made clean rock climbing harder to attain. The weather was great on this day so we decided to give Lundin a go but via Snoqualmie Mountain to ensure we could make it up to some great views even if we weren’t successful. I had done this previously in the summer so I was excited to see the difference.
We arrived at the Commonwealth Basin parking lot at 7:30 and walked back down to the road and up to the Alpental parking lot and started up the Snoqualmie Mt. Trail at 8. We cruised up the steep trail until we hit snow at about 5000′.
There were some previous tracks in the snow but we were occasionally breaking through the steps into deeper pockets of snow. There was never really more than 2 feet of snow at any point on our ascent. When we finally reached the top at 9:35 we found two ski turns in the tiny patch of snow up there. Congrats on the October turns all year.
We had a quick snack and then made our way back down to just over 6000′ where we could traverse off the ridge eastward toward Lundin. On this traverse we had a bit of a miserable time with unpredictable post holing. Once we got around to the east facing slopes of Snoqualmie their was more snow from wind loading and the post holing got worse. We eventually made our way to the west ridge of Lundin and the travel was easier.
We carefully made our way along the ridge until we started to get uncomfortable with the slippery snow and steep drop offs. We roped up and simulclimbed the rest of the way along the ridge until it started to get steeper. Rodrigo led up a half pitch and set an anchor. He then led again up what would be the crux, he got up to where he needed to traverse leftward out onto the north face and decided that the rest of the climb wasn’t a good idea. The north face was somewhat plastered in ice due to recent freeze/thaw making it very difficult to place any protection or find much to hold onto.
We then retraced our steps back to where we originally roped up, near a rappel anchor on a tree. We did the single 30m rappel and were back on low angle terrain. We headed south down Commonwealth Basin with lots more unpleasant post holing in the boulder fields until we reached the forests below. At 4200′ we traversed with some minimal bushwhacking until we could rejoin the Commonwealth Basin Trail, which we easily followed back to the car. It was a fun adventure with some great views, but I could have done without the post holing.
(Download the free Gaia GPS app on your phone to view tracks and then get a Gaia GPS membership if you want offline access. Discount below!)
Recommended brew: Silver City Trophy Life IPA
Gear Used:
- Day pack
- Gaiters
- GPS
- Harness
- Helmet
- Ice Tool (not used)
- Mountaineering boots
- 60m half rope
- Steel crampons (not used)
- Steel ice axe
- Trad gear
- Trekking poles
Post may contain affiliated links