Kendall Peak 4.2.17
The forecast wasn’t great again, the problem with the weird spring shoulder season when it rains everywhere. To try and escape the rain we decided to head up Kendall Peak from Snoqualmie Pass so that we’d hopefully be high enough to be in snow. We left Seattle at 7am, made a quick stop for breakfast, and pulled into the mostly empty Summit West parking lot a little after 8am. We grabbed our gear and walked along the road to some previously kicked steps up the large bank of snow. We walked up the snow covered road to the upper parking lot of the normal trailhead, and took the bootpack trail from there which intercepted the old commonwealth basin trail.
Hiking along the old commonwealth basin trail
We hiked in boots through the basin, following the established bootpack. We didn’t see anyone else on the trail and before too long hit the log crossing. Normally for the summer trail you’d cross and continue on the trail north to eventually find the little connector to the PCT. However, there was a snowshoe track on the east side of the creek so instead of crossing the log we followed that. Not long after that we decided to stop and put snowshoes on. We continued winding through the trees, as I checked the topo on my GPS to track where the normal summer trails are.
Made it to the log crossing, with Red Mountain in the distance
We headed northeast to intercept the summer trail that traverses south across Kendall. We more or less started going straight up through the trees and found ourselves about 60’ above the trail. After talking and consulting the map, we decided to continue going straight up angling slightly climbers’ right to avoid getting cliffed out. The going was steep and there was a lot of snow that we wallowed in even with the snowshoes on. We took turns kicking steps, although Aaron and Niki kicked the majority. At least with the deep stuff I could more easily keep up with everyone.
Kicking steps up
We next hit an avy debris field and continued up. The hardpacked snow in this let us move much quicker and I fell a bit more behind. Aaron was out front as we got into a bit of a steep clearing. Part way through that he stopped so Niki could grab his ice axe off his pack. They both continued up that but told me to try heading more climbers’ right in hopes of finding better snow to head up. After retrieving my ice axe I did just that, making good use of the toe crampon on my snowshoes and doing some high daggering with my axe, in addition to using a green belay when available.
A little ways above that we cleared the treeline. The peak was fairly socked in and it was snowing more than we expected. We had about 900’ to go still. The plan would be to head up about another 200’ to where the summer trail crossed, traverse climbers’ left across the face, then gain the ridge and traverse back the other way to tag the summit. The first traverse would take us below some cliff faces that looked pretty full of snow and the snowfield below did not show signs of recent slide activity. We had already talked about the good slide layer maybe a foot down that we had to deal with while kicking steps, so we decided to play it safe with avy conditions and not continue to the summit. We did head up a couple hundred feet to the summer trail to head down the mountain that way instead of going down what we came up.
Heading up to the summer trail
Traversing in snowshoes is the worst, so when we hit the clearing near the creek we decided to plunge step down and intercept the trail farther down. We dropped about 700’ here. Aaron kept his snowshoes on the whole time but I wasn’t fan of plunge stepping with the long snowshoe tail, so Niki and I took them off. Plunge stepping in boots was challenging as we’d sink to our thighs every so often - the snow was certainly deep. We trended skier’s left to avoid the waterfalls part way down, and then picked up the trail and started back into the trees after putting our snowshoes back on.
Heading down the slope
Aaron found a snow bridge across the creek
We found a decent snow bridge over the creek and continued on for a bit. We knew there were cliffs below us so we kept on the trail a bit longer until we knew we could heads straight down and hit our tracks from the morning. As we entered the trees again we met a couple skiers, the first people of the day. We found our trail from the morning and headed down, soon hitting the more highly trafficked snowshoe trail. There were a few more people down in the basin at this point and the sun even decided to come out a little bit.
Nicest view we had, Guye Peak across the basin
Part of my graduation photo shoot celebrating being back in the mountains adventuring
We hiked back along the creek to the log crossing. We stopped here for a photo op since the conditions weren’t good at our high point, and both Niki and Aaron took off their snowshoes. The rest of the hike out on the trail was uneventful and we made it back to the car, with a pit stop on our way home at the Brickyard Brewery in North Bend for some tasty food and drink.
GPS Track
Our path up and down Kendall Peak
