Distance: 7.5 mi.
Elevation Gain: 3200 ft.
It was a rainy weekend in Seattle but there was supposed to be clearing weather on Sunday on the east side of the mountains. We made a rough plan of going to the Poet Ridge and would optomistically go all the way out to Whittier Peak. We all suspected this would not happen given the conditions and we were right.
We left town at 6 and were hiking in cool foggy weather 2 hours and 45 minutes later. The road is long but drivable by any vehicle. We were at Irving Pass in no time and didn’t really realize we had passed it, being only a mile from the trailhead. We were in and out of foggy clouds but as we got closer to Poe it got foggier and the plants got wetter. Luckily, we also ran into plentiful and amazingly delicious blueberries about half way to Poe. Our pace slowed in the delicious berries and we decided at this point we would rather give Irving a go instead of Longfellow, as most of us would still like to come back to do the full Poet Traverse to Kodak Peak.
As we approached the summit of Poe the berries just got better and better, as did the fall colors, but so did the clouds. It started lightly raining and we even pulled out rain shells, but it wasn’t too unpleasant. We took a little break at the summit before we started getting cold and started back toward Irving Pass. we found one patch of particularly good blueberries part way back and decided to take a break to pick a bunch to take home. The ones I took home were delicious in blueberry waffles later in the week.
After blueberries, we continued back to the pass and looked around for climbers trails heading toward the peak. We followed one path that headed north off the ridge but didn’t take us anywhere useful and backtracked until finding another rough path that went more the direction we needed. We saw a few pieces of flagging on the way and switched between following what seemed like obvious trails and horrible soaking wet bushwhacking. We probably could have made some better decisions but really the wetness was getting us down. We had a few different discussions about whether we should continue, but ultimately pressed on.
Nearing the summit we ended up with less miserable brush and emerged onto steep grassy slopes on the south side of the Irving summit. We followed a rough track up a steep gully to eventually gain the ridge just east of the summit which we followed back east to the top. We finally got some good views here with the improving weather but I definitely would not return to Irving vs. many other summits in the area.
Returning to the pass was a bit easier, mostly backtracking with a few tricky sections through brush and small cliff bands. We were very happy to reach Irving Pass and before you know it you’re back at the car. It was a good trip out in less than perfect conditions…the blueberries really saved the day!
(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!)
Gear Used:
- Day pack
- GPS
- Harness
- Helmet
- Trail runners
- Trekking poles
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