I almost never repeat trails/routes. Yet, somehow, I found myself on Saturday morning parking in Diablo and starting up the Sourdough Mountain trail to access Stetattle Ridge...for the third time...in the last 12 months.
I took the route adjacent to Sourdough creek up (probably the most direct of the three slightly-different routes I've done to reach Stetattle) to the saddle at the class 3 step which I scrambled for the first time instead of bypassing it on the west. It's two high-step mantle moves and otherwise is class 2. While I had grand ambitions of doing
Elephant Butte in a day, I reached
the high point of Stetattle (6728') at 3:50 elapsed and still had 3-5 more miles of cross country with 2500'+ of gain and descent (before repeating it all back). I wasn't quite convinced I should commit to a probably 16-hour day, so I turned around and strolled all of the ridge to the Sourdough lookout.
A mother bear and cub have been travelling the entirety of the ridge as well as I followed their tracks through four tarns spread over the whole ridge before running into them on the summit of 6728'. Almost all of the tarns were recharged with the recent storm so there is a decent amount of water up there. If someone goes up soon the register on 6728' needs to be replaced and the wet register dried and cataloged.
Wonder how long it'll be before I'm back for a fourth trip up...
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| Tarn on southern Stetattle |
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| Looking south at the Colonial-Snowfield group and beyond to all the peaks up the Thunder Creek drainage |
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| Davis Peak's north face |
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| Northbound on Stetattle |
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| Bear tracks |
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| The Roost, Thornton Peak, Triumph |
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| North unit of the North Cascades from 6495' on Stetattle Ridge; loaf-shaped feature center-right is Stetattle high point 6728' |
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| More bear tracks |
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| Mama on left, cub on right |
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| Onward to 6728' |
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| Mama and cub (on rocks center-right) on the summit of 6728' |
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| Pano from 6728'; labeled picture below |
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| 1. Davis Peak, 2. The Roost, 3. Thornton Peak, 4. Triumph, 5. Glee Peak, 6. Mount Despair, 7. McMillan Spires, 8. Southern Pickets: Terror, Twin Needles, Mustard Spires (Himmelgeisterhorn, Ottohorn), 9. Mt. Baker, 10. Mt. Shuksan, 11. Elephant Butte, 12. Northern Pickets north end (Ghost Peak, Crooked Thumb, Challenger), 13. Luna Peak, 14. Bear Mountain, 15. Tradition Peak, 16. Redoubt, 17. Mox Peaks, 18. Spickard |
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| Looking back south down Stetattle from 6728' |
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| Rarely-seen Nohokomeen glacier on Jack Mountain |
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| The Southern Pickets (labels above) |
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| Azure Lake and Stetattle Creek |
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| The register on 6728' is ruined with water damage; needs replacement and cataloging |
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| Lone goat on Stetattle |
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| Big Beaver Creek and wetlands |
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| Another good track I missed on the way out |
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| Tarn on southern Stetattle |
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| Sourdough Lake |
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| Sourdough Mountain lookout |
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| Diablo Lake, Colonial-Snowfield group and the Thunder Creek drainage |
