Black Peak via NE ridge, 5.3
October 12, 2024
On this beautiful sunny weekend, I was supposed to do a larches hike with a friend, but seeing good weather and feeling a little jealous of Francis getting in an alpine route, I decided I absolutely had to find something fun and technical to do before the snow rolled in for the year. I’d been eyeing up Black Peak especially for the fall since Wind Lake is like THE spot in Washington to see larches. I debated going to solo the NE ridge, but as I researched the route I decided I’d rather have a partner. With Francis being out with Alex, I realized his girlfriend Nicole must be free, so I reached out to see if she’d want to join me.
Nicole is fairly new to alpine climbing, or really climbing in general, so she agreed this would be the perfect route for her. Knowing this, we wouldn’t be soloing, so I packed up a rope and a very light alpine rack to carry along for the hike. Nicole came to stay on our couch so we could make an early start at 4am, and after a few short hours of sleep we were already on the road.
Although we made it to the trailhead for 7:30am, there were already hundreds of cars lined up down the road, with all sorts of folks ready to see some larches. This meant that moving on the trail was incredibly slow, and all hundred of us tourists were hiking in a tighly packed conga line. When we got to the turn off to Maple Pass and wind lake, the crowds finally slimmed down a little and we were able to pick up the pace.
As we passed the lower and then upper Wind lake, we were completely blown away by the beautiful fall colours. When I was out at Ingalls, the larches had not quite been in season yet, but they were now in their full glorious yellow fall coats. The contrast between these yellow trees, red moss, and blue lakes was jaw dropping, and we stopped many times to enjoy the views along the way.
Our first views of Black Peak after finally breaking out of the Conga line!
Surrounded by larches already!
The lower lake, a gorgeous turqouise
Amazing fall colours!
Looking back at the lower lake
This is clearly why people come here!
the thickest larch tree I’ve ever seen, lol
Looking up at black peak from Wind Lake now!
After we passed tons of campers at upper Wind lake, we branched off the trail to the North, heading up a loose boulder field towards the start of the route. It was a brutally hot day, and we both regretted our long sleeve black shirts as we climbed steeply to the ridge. I can see how the approach in early season would be easier on snow, but we only had to make a few easy scramble moves to get to the col.
Looking up at the ridgeline, it looked absolutely spectacular. It was nearly a knife edge with several prominent gendarmes jutting out. We followed others’ beta to stay on the east side of the ridge for the first little bit to avoid the gendarmes, and soon roped up and began simuling for the rest. I initially went too far on the east side, before deciding to backtrack and gain the ridge itself. This was definitely the right call, and the beta to stay within 10-20m or so of the ridgeline was correct. Occasionally you can bypass a gendarme on the left, but for the most part the route perfectly follows the ups and downs of the ridge crest.
As noted in almost every report, the rock quality became better the higher on the ridge we went, and as we neared the summit, we truly began to enjoy the climbing. It was all easy to do in our trail runners, but we were happy to have the rope just for the exposure. I placed very minimal pieces, and we ran the entire 200m ridgeline in 7 pitches (most of which were short ones lower down as I navigated the route-finding).
We reached the summit around 4pm, and enjoyed the incredible views across the valley. I had so much fun pointing out to Nicole all the peaks and spires in Washington Pass, especially the ones I’d climbed. By this point I’d actually done a good chunk of them, and it was pretty cool to look over and know them all almost as if they’re my home mountains. There is just so much good climbing to be had in this area!
Our boyfriends were currently climbing Golden Horn and Tower Mountain, which are both very prominent peaks that you can see from almost anywhere in the area. We discovered in an inreach message that they had already almost completed their 40km day to the two peaks, so we began our descent from the mountain in hopes we could meet them for dinner.
Looking back at Wind Lake
Nicole enjoying the views
Nicole coming up the boulder field
An approximation of our route to the ridge. It’s easier than it looks like it will be and there was definitely no snow this time of year
Standing at the start of the ridgeline!
Nicole scrambling up the ridgeline behind me. No ropes yet!
Starting to simul up some really pretty and solid rock
Nicole with the boys in the back (kind of, haha) – Tower Mountain and Golden Horn are the two tall ones you see here.
Steepening ridgeline as we approach the summit
Me standing up top!
Wind lake and Washington Pass from the summit. Gorgeous area!
Nicole on the summit!
Girl team!!!! <3
The few cruxy moves off the summit were no more than 3rd/4th class depending on who you ask, and the rest of the descent was a very well marked and travelled trail with cairns everywhere. We met a solo hiker that was a little lost, so he linked up with us all the way back to wing lake. As it turns out our new friend Ben was a connoisseur of pop culture, so he and Nicole used the opportunity to school me in all the happenings of Taylor Swift, and Chappell Roan (who I was hearing about for the first time, lol), and other names which I promptly forgot (sorry Nicole and Ben, haha).
We left our new friend at Wing Lake where he was camping, and then began our descent to the car with headlamps. Nicole was quite the trooper, not having done such a long day before, and we set a pretty swift pace for most of the way back. Although the trail was straightforward, it was long and tiring, and by the time we reached the car around 9pm, we were completely exhausted and our feet sore.
We’d asked the boys to order some food for us, but when we realized we’d be asking them to wait more than 3 hours, we told them to head home. Nicole and I then entered total survival mode for the rest of the drive, and she did her best to keep me awake while I tried not to drift off to sleep while driving. We eventually stopped for a nap as I was truly exhausted, but even that didn’t help and she ended up driving us the rest of the way home. I drifted in and out of sleep as she played her music, and I was incredibly grateful for her when we made it back to my parking garage by 1:30am. It had been a near 22 hour day for us, and we both crashed into bed.
After our fantastic day in the mountains, we both felt like we were hungover the next day, taking an hour long nap before going to Thanksgiving dinner- and then still barely making it through that. I’m grateful for Nicole tagging along with me on this journey, but I definitely do not ever plan to day trip Washington again.
The trail coming down from the summit (much easier)
This is me realizing the lighting is great :p
Sunset over wind lake. A beauty!
The last of the colours as we descended down
And finally.. a moon rise too! 🙂
Gear
- 60m twin rope
- Single rack of cams, lots of slings (wish we had more cams just to simul for longer)