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Trip Report    

Alpine Scramble - Guye Peak/North Route

Commonwealth Creek approach on snow

Carolyn Graham Carolyn Graham
April 19, 2026
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • The 12”-16” of new snow that fell Wed-Thurs earlier in the week made for more challenging travel conditions with lots of wallowing, postholing, and negotiating sometimes greater than waist-deep holes covered up by the new snow.

Party size: 5 (this included 3 students who completed their first snow scramble)

Departed from Summit West parking area at 8:15 AM

Gear carried: ice axes, helmets, mountaineering boots, crampons, poles

Gear used: ice axes, helmets, mountaineering boots, poles

Trip stats: 8.25 hours CTC, 2390’ gain, and ~5.6 miles

We crossed the Commonwealth Creek at a location considerably upstream of the normal summer “trail crossing” on a snow/log bridge not nearly as narrow or high above the water as the options we saw along the way.

From here we picked our way across a couple smaller creeks to join the route to the Guye Peak/Cave Ridge saddle. At around elevation 4000’ we met up with a boot path through the snow set by a party ahead of us. This made for much easier progress and we elected to follow it.

We arrived a Red Pond around 11:30 AM and took a break here. At this point we could occasionally hear the group ahead of us.

We arrived at the final summit block area around 12:30 PM. The group ahead was on the actual summit (which is small), so we took a break just below, and waited for them come down.

From the summit we could see our cars parked at the Summit West lot far below, Mt Rainier, and many surrounding Snoqualmie Pass peaks.

We started descending from just below the final summit block at about 1:30 PM and arrived at the Summit West parking area at 4:30 PM.

Weather: bluebird clear day, mostly sunny skies, a few high clouds