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Trip Report    

Winter Scramble - Oakes Peak (winter)

Amazing doesn't even begin to describe the views from this peak

  • Road rough but passable
  • Oakes Creek route in decent shape, parked on the other side of the creek (you have to drive through 3 inches of water).  Snowshoes on at the first road crossing at 3400'.  Thick sticky snow 1000' below the top made the last part difficult.  3 stars for the route, 5 stars for the views on top

We took the direct Oakes Creek approach which saves some time over the other approach. Some bushwacking for the first 200', but then mostly open forest and salal.  Routefinding is straightforward - go up.  The only flat spots are the road crossings.

Views open up right below the summit, so save this one for a good weather day unless you are just interested in a workout.

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Labeled photo of 4 of us by Sue Shih.

5 hours up, 3 1/2 down - unfortunately had to do the bushwacking with headlamps since it gets dark so early, should have started 30 minutes earlier, given the difficult snow conditions higher up.

Stats: 7 miles, 5100' elevation gain,  8 1/2 hours round trip