Day 2: Yang Yang Lakes to White Rock Lakes

Dome Peak in early morning light.

Rising early again, Tim and I, Lowell and Brian, and Phil and Matt were on our way. We had all resolved that Dome Peak was a priority summit for the day, and that if possible we would try to summit it today instead of tomorrow. This would make for a hard day, but an easier day out, rather than a really really difficult fourth day.

The path winds its way through ripe blueberry patches down from White Rock Lakes into the drainage below the Dana and Chinkamin Glaciers. It does a fairly level traverse to where a snow finger of the Dana Glacier is reached through a weakness in the cliffband. From White Rock Lakes the way looks steep and sketchy, but up close it is revealed for the low angle jaunt that it is. Crampons on at the base of the snow finger, and we made our way onto the Dana Glacier.

Tim and I tackled the first half of the Dana Glacier unroped, but elected to rope up higher up, where some crevasses and bridges made travel less straightforward. Evenso, we were at Spire col within 3 and a half hours from White Rock Lakes, at 10:30. From Spire Col the way down to the campsites on Itswoot Ridge is not obvious, but if you follow the fall line and stay generally skiers left, everything falls into place and in a short time we were pitching a hasty camp.

If we were going to summit Dome, we would have to hustle. So Lowell, Brien, Tim and I moved out with ultra-light summit packs after only a short rest. Phil elected not to climb, and Matt had summitted Dome before and therefore was content to hang out in camp.

The traverse over to where the steep talus uphile grind commences took only half an hour, and before long and with the help of a tough pace set by a very fit Lowell Skoog, we were at the base of the Dome Glacier. Here, much to everyones casual surprise, Lowell met his brother Gordy Skoog, just back from a solo of several of the surrounding summits! Gordy was the only other climber on Dome this day. We talked a bit and went our separate ways...Gordy was going to continue on and do a solo all-out push of the Ptarmigan Traverse from South to North over the next 36 hours. We continued on over the Dome Glacier to the summit, which we reached just over 3 hours from camp.

Tim Lawrence on the last snow arete before the knife-edge summit ridge of Dome Peak.

From the summit of Dome, we could see the North face of Sinster, the Gunsight peaks, Glacier and Bonanza and peaks to the South, and the country we had just travelled through the last 2-3 days to the North. Just below us, on a ridge not far away, we could see the orange flames and the smoke of the fires burning on Dome Peak, just South of the Chinkamin. To the North, in the distance, the fire burning on the flanks of Johannesburg had erupted into a plume of smoke and vapor.

Forest fire on the flanks of Johannesburg from the summit of Dome.

Returning to camp, we listened to Lowell read the original Ptarmigan Climbing Club account of the Ptarmigan Traverse while we made food and watched the sunset on Dome.

Sunset on Dome Peak from Itswoot Ridge camp.

Ptarmigan Traverse, Day 4, Aug 28-Sept 1, 2003

Day 3: White Rock Lakes to Itswoot Ridge

The night was much colder than the last several had been, and so we were grateful to rise late and get warmed by the sun while making breakfast. Todays itinerary consisted only of trudging out the 15 miles or so to the trailhead at Downy Creek. We left Itswoot ridge after breakfast and traversed to Vub Lake, where we met Mr. Bear. A young bear who was more interested in foraging for blueberries than bothering with six climbers.

After climbing very steep switchbacks above cub lake, the trail travels across some pretty alpine medows above the head of Bachelor Creek. Two years before the trail had been wiped out by a massive avalanche down Bachelor Creek, and there was no real trail as the trail transitioned from the alpine medows to the timber. But skiers left through the tall timber was very straightforward, and we decended to where we could meet up with the trail again at the bottom of the slide in about 25 minutes.

From here, the trail is straighforward, though unmaintained, down Bachelor Creek to where it meets with Downy Creek. This is a long grind, and we took a long break when we finally got to Downy Creek. From there, a basically flat and maintained trail leads to the Downy Creek trailhead in 6.6 miles, which we all managed in 2 hours, 10 minutes from the junction of Bachelor Creek, suffering from sore feet and tiring bodies. When we reached the Downy Creek trailhead, we reached the Suiattle River road and the official end to the Ptarmigan Traverse.

Cub Lake.