Sourdough Gap Hike

10 November 2014

C.J. crossing Sourdough Gap

 C.J. and I started off looking at the hike to Crystal Lake from Hwy 410 at 3500 ft climbing 2600 ft to the lake in three miles. Somehow that didn't sound like enough of a fun-to-effort ratio so we looked at starting much higher - like over 5000 ft at Chinook Pass - with a gain of 1100 ft in about four miles. The views were reported to be excellent. What we didn't count on was the snow that fell the night of the 9th...

G in snow at trailhead

We got an early-for-us start at 0730 and reached the trailhead parking lot around 0930. Beyond the turnoff to Crystal Mountain we started seeing a dusting of snow on the roadside. By the time we were climbing to Cayuse Pass, the snow was deep enough that it had been plowed off the road. 410 over Chinook Pass was icy but it had been sanded (unlike the parking lot (5400 ft) which was glare ice). One car in the lot indicated that there was someone who had gotten an earlier start. Snow depth was 4-5 inches and I was guessing that it would be deeper the higher we went, so we strapped our relatively light snowshoes to our packs [Relatively light compared to the ash and gut Green Mountain bearpaws we had sold only a few years ago].

Shadows at Sheep Lake

The trail paralleled the road along a steep slope for a mile and a half then climbed through forest to the partly frozen Sheep Lake (5800 ft) at 2.1 miles.I was pretty surprised that it had been so easy to get to the lake considering the trail was covered with snow and there were only two tracks ahead of us. But the snow had not gotten much deeper and we had not needed our snowshoes. The next section of the trail climbed 700 ft or so in 1.4 miles to Sourdough Gap at 6425 ft. We had a glimpse of the top of Rainier from near the Gap and good views of Naches and Yakima Peaks as well as the broad, U-shaped valley of the American River. But it was clear that we would have to traverse the steep slope on the backside of Sourdough Gap if we wanted

Rainier from lunch spot above Crystal Lake

a good view of Rainier. Much of the snow had slid or blown off the slope, but the trail was deep in wind-blown snow. We followed the tracks for a while, postholing with every other step. Finally we put on our snowshoes and then it went a bit easier for the quarter mile or so to

Gray Jay, this one was not a camp robber

the next ridge. Beyond that we found a great view to the west which included most of Mt. Rainier. We stomped a platform in the snow and had lunch in the sunshine and calm wind. We finished up just as the dark shadow from a crag to the south reached us.

The tracks of the people in front of us did not follow the steep trail down to Crystal Lake as we had expected. Instead they (and two other people) took the Pacific Crest Trail to Crystal Mtn ski area. We used our snowshoes to

C.J. at Sheep Lake

return to Sourdough Gap, then removed them. Once on the sunny side, the snow had softened up but as the day waned and the sun sank behind some clouds it started to cool off again. We left the Gap at 1350 and reached the car almost two hours later (It had taken three hours to climb to the col). The parking lot was even slipperier than before and I took a fall before figuring it out. C.J. had been doing really well both up and down, but her feet were still causing serious pain especially later in the day. This will be her last hike before another round of foot surgery to release the tension on the tendons in two other toes.

I drove carefully down Chinook Pass as the sun set. There won't be many more days before the pass is closed for the winter. We stopped for hot chocolate at Wapiti Woolies in Greenwater and ran into Harold Locke. We got home some time after 1730. Good thing we had some leftovers for dinner because neither of us felt like cooking.