Failing to Conquer...but Succeeding at Surviving

Putrid Pete's Peak is situated West-Northwest of Mount Defiance. I was invited by my labmate to climb it Saturday morning. Originally I was going to hit up Green Lake for a run as the weather was forecast to be clear and warm (enough). It was a great day for a hike.

We arrived early at the trailhead sometime around 7am with the clouds still out and just the smallest amount of snow coming down. My labmate, Dan, is a well-prepared climber and had all the right gear for a colder day, including some wicked looking (and apparently heavy) boots. I had my ailing pair of Saucony runners; Omni Pro Grid 9's for that extra stabilization - when you're running at least. He lent me a larger bag to help carry some extra supplies as well like Yaktrax, which are essentially snow-chains for your feet (just brilliant, by the way!). You just slip them on your feet and BOOM, you've got additional traction :) I didn't think we'd need them, but he thought they might be useful once we hit the rocky section.

At the trailhead to Putrid Pete's Peak. Although it's not listed because the trail breaks off from the main section early on.

So we set off from the trailhead to climb to the peak! The first half or more of the trail was within a forested area and despite a lot of switchbacks, the trail remained much steeper than previous hikes. We finally broke from the forest and ended up hitting a somewhat perceptible trail that climbed steeply upwards through rock outcroppings. It wasn't too bad, although the storm clouds had remained and now a little more snow was on its way down. I stopped briefly to take a picture of a tree stump, to show to my wife that I had gone "winter" hiking.

See - just a little snow coming down. Nothing to worry about!

And then the snow started coming a little harder...

And then, the snow REALLY came down. And it wasn't flakes anymore but small, round, balls - not hail but more like small Lego men were fashioning their own snowballs in the clouds. We pushed onwards for a while thinking it would die, but we soon realized, the sparsely viewable path was getting covered in snow; just enough to be slippery and certainly not enough to tromp safely along.

Check out all that snow! And we were sooo close to the summit.

You can see the upper ridge in the top left corner. I'm not sure if that is the true summit, but it must've been around there somewhere.

Given my inexperience, the diminishing amount of visible path, and the continuing snowfall, Dan made the call to turn back and I totally agreed. No need to die to see a summit with the name "putrid" in it - even if we were just a few hundred feet of elevation from it. We navigated to some forested area and donned additional gear - more gloves (my pitiable mittens had soaked through and Dan had extras), walking poles (super handy for feeling out the snow covered ground ahead) and my borrowed Yaktrax! Did I mention how amazing they are? We roped up together with some harnesses and made a plan to head back down the mountainside through as many trees as possible. If one of us slipped (ie Me), then it would be a shorter tumble before hitting some trees rather than a long tumble down dangerous rocks.

We eventually made it back to the trail and I noticed the same tree I had already taken a picture of - except it was now buried. By then, the snow had also stopped. My feet were cold, wet, and we still wouldn't be able to see the path back up properly. Once we got back on the wooded section of the trail, I noticed deep footprints in the snow, headed back to the trailhead. Dan recalled the Jeep we had parked beside and we guessed that whomever it was, had gone up ahead of us and was on their way back down when the snow hit. They must've taken another path back down to avoid slipping on the rocks too. It made my life easier from there to just follow the mysterious footprints back down the path :)

Our snow covered stump. Notice the clear skies way in the background?

So we survived! And frankly, it took a lot out of me to navigate down a partially snowed-out mountain. There were slips and I ended up engaging my calves and quads extra hard. Not to mention me being in runners, which means no ankle stability. All-in-all a fun adventure and I'm sure I'll have a chance in the spring to try for it again...

This crazy long felled tree will probably still be there next year.

One last thing to note about the climb - when we arrived back in Seattle? A perfectly sunny day... not a drop of rain had come down in all the time we were gone. Go figure...