Alpine Scramble - Baldy—Gray Wolf Ridge—Mount Deception Traverse

Arranged via email.

A gorgeous and very strenuous trip to seldom visited peaks in the NE corner of the Olympics.  There will be very little retracing our steps on this trip, so attendees need to be very comfortable with scrambling over rough terrain with full overnight packs.   Our first day will see us traveling alongside the Dungeness River, then ascending the NE ridge of Mount Fricaba before descending into Deception Basin to our 1st night’s camp.  Our 2nd day has us crossing into upper Royal Basin before ascending over Surprise Col, then descending to our 2nd night’s camp at ~5,600’.  With day packs from this camp (still on the 2nd day) we will ascend to the south (passing a small lake at ~6,100’), then descend into the valley bordering the NW aspect of Mount Deception to 5,600’.  From here we ascend the stagnant glacier on the northern aspect of Mount Deception, detour around Gilhooey Tower (on its west side), and finally reach the summit of Mount Deception.  We retrace our steps to our 2nd night camp.  Our last day we ascend the ridge north of our camp, then descend to ~5,700’ before traversing to a small lake at ~5,900’.  From this lake we ascend to, and follow Gray Wolf Ridge (with numerous ups and downs) before descending to our cars from Baldy.  The elevation gains by day are 1st day: 4600’ w/overnight packs, 2nd day: 2000’ w/overnight packs - 4000’ w/day packs, 3rd day: 4000’ w/overnight packs.  Photos from other trips to this venue can be seen here.