Mount Roosevelt (attempted)

Carla and I parked at the Snow Lake trailhead and hiked up the trail, which turned out to be the wrong way to go in the winter. Once we reached a clearing where we could see where the trail threads up through the cliff bands, we turned off the trail and headed north up a more moderate part of the east-west ridge that is south of Snow Lake.

Snow Lake was still completely frozen over. Carla walked across the lake while I, being scared of walking across lakes, skirted the side. Eventually we came to the west side of the lake, zigzagged up the snow bowls between the lake and Roosevelt, and made our way to the gully between the summit of Roosevelt and a subsidiary peak to the south of Roosevelt.

Here we tried to ascend the gully between Roosevelt and the south peak, then at the top of the gully we traversed right (north) until we came to a steep, exposed section of snow that we weren't willing to follow.

Second try was to ascend a more moderate gully a little way to the south. This got us up on the ridge between Kaleetan Peak and Mount Roosevelt, here we had excellent views of the north ridge of Kaleetan Peak. We followed the ridge north until we met the rocky subsidiary peak south of Roosevelt. Convinced we were on route I tried scrambling the crumbly, exposed rock for fifty feet or so before coming to my senses and descending while the descending was marginal and not horrible.

Defeated, we descended to the lake, braving wet snow slides on the way. By this time I was used to risks so I walked the full 1+ miles across frozen Snow Lake.

On the way back we descended via Source Lake instead of the main trail, which is a much better way to access Snow Lake in the winter.

Date:

2006/05/05

Elevation gain:

2,485 feet

Trip type:

scramble

USGS quad:

Snoqualmie Pass

In:

Middle Fork Snoqualmie Drainage, Alpine Lakes Wilderness

References:

75 Scrambles in Washington: Classic Routes to the Summits

Car-to-car:

10 hours 52 minutes

52 minutes driving there from Capitol Hill to Snow Lake trailhead
2 hours 22 minutes ascending from Snow Lake trailhead to Snow Lake outlet
2 hours 57 minutes ascending from Snow Lake outlet to closest we got to the summit (up snow finger)
2 hours 5 minutes ascending from closest we got to the summit (up snow finger) to second closest we got to summit (partially up N peak of Roosevelt)
1 hour 39 minutes descending from second closest we got to summit (partially up N peak of Roosevelt) to Snow Lake
1 hour 49 minutes descending from Snow Lake to Snow Lake trailhead

Bryant Peak and Chair Peak from Snow Lake trail

The Tooth, Hemlock Peak, and Bryant Peak from Snow Lake Trail

Carla on Snow Lake, Mount Roosevelt in background

Middle Fork peaks, Avalanche Mountain, and Snoqualmie Mountain over Snow Lake

East side of the north ridge of Kaleetan Peak

West side of the north ridge of Kaleetan Peak

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