Mount Stickney (attempted)

• Date: 2013/12/07 Car-to-car time: 13 hours 9 minutes Trip type: scramble USGS quad: Mount Stickney

• Walking up the Olney Creek Road an hour before sunrise.

• Snow settling around young alders.

• In the spring people have to wade through waist-deep water here. http://www.nwhikers.net/forums...

• The first direct sunlight of the day.

• We met Yana, Josh, and Jeff at One Acre Lake. They were waiting for a helicopter to arrive for a Snohomish County County search and rescue training exercise.

• The SAR copter dropped off two rescuers. The temperatures were in the teens and the wind chill from the helicopter was tremendous.

• The helicopter circled overhead while the two rescuers prepared the evacuee.

• Hoisting Josh, the "injured" rescue subject.

• Josh and the SAR crew, taking the fast way back to town.

• Mount Stickney over a very wind affected crust.

• Stickney's east ridge.

• Mount Stickney

• Cracks propagating through small patches of wind slabs persuaded me and Lindsay to turn around. Matt and Yana continued to the summit.

• Lindsay and I headed up the 5,080' NW summit of Stickney.

• Looking at Mount Stickney from the NW summit.

• The Puget Sound Basin and the Olympic Mountains.

• Spada Lake with Three Fingers and Whitehorse in the distance.

• Matt and Yana, standing on the summit of Mount Stickney.

• Stickney's east ridge.

• Sperry, Morning Star, Del Campo, Gothic, and Sheep Gap.

• Mount Pilchuck

• We hiked 2.5 hours in the dark on the way back.