Distance: 41 mi.
Elevation Gain: 11800 ft.

After a failed attempt at Sluiskin Mountain (aka The Chief) in 2019, I asked Craig to return with me and be my rope gun even though he had done it before. As we were trying to navigate obtaining backcountry permits in Mount Rainier National Park during COVID, we learned that they had opened up all the backcountry spots sometime in the spring and we were way behind the ball. The best site for Sluiskin Mountains, Yellowstone Cliffs, was booked for the entire season. Craig thought that one of the backcountry zones would work well for our trip but there wasn’t any information online about if those were available. So he emailed a request to the ranger station a couple weeks before the trip and was able to obtain a zone permit for the two of us in the Crescent Lake Cross Country Zone. Huzzah!

The permit had some helpful reminders about off-trail travel and I thought I’d copy them here.

Day 1
14.3 miles (4.8 on bike)
+6500′ -2500′ (+500′ on bike)

So with that in mind, we grabbed our bear can and left Seattle a bit after 7 AM. We arrived at the Carbon River trailhead around 9 AM. The road was washed out just before the actual trailhead so we had to park along the road (but beware, they were still ticketing people without National Park passes on their dash). There were a few porta potties and the trailhead bathroom was closed. We lumbered onto our mountain bikes to make the 5 mile road to Ipsut Creek Camp go a bit faster. The bike ride has almost no coasting on the way up, but that means the way down is even more fun so we had to keep that in mind. There were a couple spots where we had to walk the bikes over some footbridges and an especially rocky section.

We locked our bikes up at a provided bike stand at the campground and began our climb up toward Windy Pass. The bridge over Carbon River was in good shape, which inspired confidence as we crossed the raging river. Soon after, we reached the trail split where the Northern Loop Trail leaves the Wonderland Trail and we turned left (north) on the Northern Loop Trail. From here there were numerous punishing switchbacks that were luckily in the shade. When we got up on the high plateau we kept waiting for the “Windy” in Windy Gap but the air was stifling hot.

We went a little bit past the gap in search of the one game trail that travels down to the Van Horn Creek below Sluiskin Mountains. Most of this slope is extremely steep and treed but the hooved animals know the least stupid way through. We followed the wrong game trail at first but we met back up with the good one for the steepest section.

We filled up water at the creek which was somewhat mosquito-ey but not terrible. We climbed a steep heather slope to a scree field on the north side of Sluiskin Mountains. We scoped out a decent looking tent site just below us on a grass patch and quickly set up the tent before beginning our climb. We realized there was a water source nearby, which took any stress off of our water consumption for the evening. We stashed most of our food in the bear canister and began our evening climb of Sluiskin. The year before I had ascended the boulder field the whole way up but this time we climbed a more solid ridge in the middle of the boulder field that was a mix of heather and solid rock, and the travel was definitely easier. We couldn’t avoid the boulder field forever, however, and climbed the final bit to the ridge between Sluiskin Mountain and Sluiskin Mountain West.

From here we turned left (east) and climbed up game trails in scree until we reached the north ridge of Sluiskin Mountain. Here we slung a tree for a belay station and I belayed Craig up the 4th class/low 5th class scramble. He found a couple spots to protect the climb and then belayed me from above. When I reached the spot where Abby had turned around on the climb last year I could see why she got sketched out. The crux was vertical and required smearing feet and moving up the arete with the right hand. It was pretty tricky and also fairly exposed below.

Our second mini-pitch had easier climbing and we quickly reached the summit, which had beautiful views of Mount Rainier but also tons of bugs so we didn’t spend all that long on top. I had a jacket on but Craig’s bare arms got eaten to bits while he was trying to rappel. The webbing that was previously placed at the rappel station was partially torn so Craig tied a new cordelette and left a locking carabiner.

Craig remembered using a 30 meter rope to rappel last time he climbed the peak, but our rappel landed us on top of the crux of the climb, which wasn’t too helpful. We found a wedged rock to sling as a belay station and I belayed him while he downclimbed the crux. Then he spotted me while I downclimbed the section unroped. We went down the final blocky scramble and then put away all the climbing gear besides helmets. We quickly returned to the ridge between Sluiskin Mountain and Sluiskin Mountain West and then immediately began climbing the steep scree toward the peak. There was a brief section of steeper 3rd class climbing, but the climb was pretty quick and straightforward even though it looked super steep from below.

It was getting late and dark and the mosquitoes were hungry so we tried to move quickly back down to our campsite. The campsite was buzzing with mosquitoes so we mostly hid in the tent, but the sunset over the Van Horn valley was quite beautiful.

Day 2
11.1 miles
+4900′ -4200′

In the morning we purified water and packed up camp, heading back toward Van Horn Creek. We followed the best game trail back to the pass and then stashed our overnight gear. We turned right (east) on the Northern Loop Trail to begin our mondo descent toward Lake James and eventually followed signs for the Lake James Ranger Station on the right. When we reached the ranger station we headed into the forest behind the station and bashed through the bushes to cross Van Horn creek and quickly entered a boulder field. We made a leftward (northeast) ascending traverse across boulders toward burned forest, then began climbing more steeply to the northeast ridge of Redstone.

Just before we reached the ridge we turned right (southwest) on game trails to traverse westward across steep scree on the north side of the ridge. We crossed over to the west side of a subridge and then had to descend a short way to find a steep north facing gully that would give us access to the summit block. We curled clockwise at the top of the gully to traverse under the summit and then did a one move downclimb into a very steep gully, which we immediately climbed out of on fun blocky moves to the summit on the right. There was some exposure there. Below the small summit I found an ancient can of fried beef (? circa 1919-1951) that I packed out for LNT and also to keep as funky decor (to go along with the ancient ski boot we found on the summit of Jughandle).

We retraced our steps to descend from Redstone except for one section of the traverse around the summit that we were able to safely cut off. Instead of heading back for the ranger station we made a more direct descent down to the Van Horn creek, but we did a lot more climbing over downed trees on this route and didn’t end up that much farther down the trail so I’m not sure it was worth it. We actually met back up with the Lake James Ranger Station trail and then turned right on the Northern Loop Trail toward the Lake James campsite. We stopped at the Lake James outlet to refill water, continued past the campsite for a short ways, and then headed off trail at about 4000′ to the left (north) toward Pigeon Peak.

Pigeon Peak is basically a right of passage for those of us who are working on the 100 Peaks at Mount Rainier list because it’s notorious for being miserable, but I started out optimistic. Cross country travel can be a great lesson in patience, impermanence, and humility. Objects that you expect to bend to your will can stop you in your tracks, objects that you expect to hold your weight suddenly crumble into nothingness, and you’re guaranteed to choose some bad routes and land on your butt more than once. But Pigeon Peak really lived up to its reputation. I kept getting smacked in the face by branches, tripping over my own trekking poles, couldn’t stop more than 2.5 seconds without mosquitoes hovering, and kept dumping caches of dead pine needles down the back of my shirt, where they would stick to my sweat. By the time we approached the “summit” of Pigeon, which became increasingly brushy before opening up, my shirt was destroyed, my pants were destroyed, and even a piece of my soul was destroyed. Flies kept circling around my head, presumably waiting for me to die from exhaustion. The only saving grace was that there were ripe blueberries on the bushes and the mosquitoes weren’t as terrible as they could have been. In fact, the mosquitoes were worse at higher elevations than lower elevations the whole weekend.

We did a very short scramble to the summit of Pigeon, which had an opening with some decent views toward Mount Rainier. I needed to rest for about half an hour before I could summon the courage to return. In fact, I only got moving after an ant rudely bit my stomach to tell me I was napping on its turf. For the return trip I stashed my poles and put my hood on to avoid pine needles on my neck despite the extreme heat, and having hands free to brush away branches and mosquitoes made the return trip tolerable. I was losing my cool again as we approached the main trail because I kept whacking my bruised shins against more bushes, so I sighed a major breath of relief when we met the trail and could travel unimpeded.

We had a long, hot climb ahead of us. We got water at the Lake James outlet again (which was miraculously bug-free) and then climbed our way back to the pass. We passed a few parties on the way up, returned to our stashed stuff, and filled up on water in case there wouldn’t be a water source closer to camp. We climbed up to the pass and then continued on the Northern Loop Trail until we had the unnamed alpine lake at the pass in our sights. Then we turned left (south) and curved around the east end of the lake. We put on helmets (and bug nets) to climb the scree field on the north side of Crescent Mountain, which did in fact have a couple runoff streams.

As we climbed the treeless scree field the wind picked up and my spidey senses told me that there may be thunderstorms brewing. I looked back toward Seattle and saw a couple lighting strikes to the north. I checked in with Craig about whether we should look for a campsite before reaching the ridge, but he thought there would be more treed campsites on the south side of the ridge so we continued up. At first we wanted to take advantage of the wind to avoid mosquitoes and tried setting up camp in a sandy spot right on the ridge, but a gust of wind almost blew our tent away so between that and the far off lightning storm, we decided it made more sense to move camp to a spot tucked away in the trees. The stormy sunset was super pretty. It lightly rained on and off throughout the evening and then cleared up later on. Unfortunately the mosquitoes also really liked our windless spot and formed hoards around the tent.

Day 3
15.6 miles (4.8 on bike)
+1700′ -6300′ (-500′ on bike)

In the morning we had beautiful views toward Sluiskin Mountains and Mount Rainier. I thought maybe the mosquitoes would be better on the top of the peak so we climbed it right away for breakfast, but they were just as annoying up there. We returned to pack up our camp and then followed various game trails southeast across the meadows toward Vernal Park and Old Desolate. There were a few snow patches on the way that we could have avoided but they weren’t too steep so we just went across them. We climbed a steep scree slope south to the east ridge of Old Desolate, then turned right (west) to summit the peak.

We enjoyed the beautiful 360 views while snacking on the breezy summit. We had to decide whether we would make an attempt for Mineral Mountain, but I had to get back to Seattle relatively early so we decided to head down. As opposed to Pigeon Peak, I feel that I can actually look forward to returning to the pretty alpine meadows for Mineral, so I think we made the right choice to fit Pigeon in. We headed due west down a scree gully from the peak, which emptied into a large talus field. This talus field kind of freaked me out because even some of the refrigerator sized rocks were wobbly and I was worried I’d get my leg crushed deep in the wilderness, but we made it safely onto a snow patch in the north basin. We curled northwest along pretty alpine meadows and stayed left of the creek in Moraine Park. After crossing the creek, we turned left (west) and went steeply down between a talus field and a treed slope on a nice goat track toward the Wonderland Trail. We crossed Moraine Creek and then turned right (north) on the trail toward the Dick Creek campsite. We had lunch on the side of the trail and enjoyed the bug-free lower elevation.

After crossing Dick Creek, the trail turned northwest on dry, sun-exposed trail with cool views of the Carbon Glacier. We scoped out the Carbon River Suspension Bridge which looked super scary, then met back up with the Northern Loop Trail and continued downhill until we crossed the Carbon River.

The rushing river was lapping onto the small log bridge crossing the river so that was intimidating, but we both crossed uneventfully. We continued mostly flat on the Wonderland Trail and enjoyed the ripe thimbleberries along the side of the trail, then continued straight when the Wonderland Trail broke off to the left so that we could finally reach the Ipsut Creek Campground. We met back up with our bikes and enjoyed the easy ride back out to the car.

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Gear Used:

• Backpacking tent
• Bear canister
• Fishing pole (not used)
• GPS
• Harness
• Helmet
• Mountain bike
• Overnight pack
• 30 m half rope (60 m would have been better for rappelling)
• Sleeping pad
• Summer sleeping bag
• Stove
• Trad gear – a few mid size nuts and tricams, slings, codelette left at rap station
• Trail runners
• Trekking poles
• Water drops/filter

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