Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Hawkins Mountain
Cold, foggy June scramble, dusting of fresh snow.
Brian Booth
- Sun, Jun 6, 2021
- Alpine Scramble - Hawkins Mountain
- Hawkins Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road rough but passable
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Snowline 5300'.
SW Ridge half-covered with snow (E side); half melted to bare dirt (W side); you could choose either snow or dirt up to 6200'.
Snow was very hard, from very hot weather earlier in the week that produced melting, and then a hard freeze the night prior. A couple sections would have been best with microspikes, but we just used boots the whole way, kicking hard steps in those couple sections.
Remnants of cornices on the E side of the ridge, easily avoided.
Despite cold, snowfall & fog that obscured views, was a pleasant trip. There was a dusting of fresh snow that put a frosting on the trees.
We started from the Salmon la Sac side. Road 4330-138 is rough with loose rock, but passable. Road 4330-140 was very rough with deep mud pits - high clearance AWD recommended. Parking extremely limited on 4330-140 - really is much simpler to just park at the end of 4330-138.
We followed Big Boulder Creek Trail till curving 'round to the S side of the W ridge, where we found a bootpath up to the 4470' knob. The bootpath from the knob to 5300' is very worn in, starting to look like a maintained trail, indicating this area is getting a lot more use than it used to.
Route from there stays on top of ridge the whole way.
Snowed on us about half the time, heavily at times. Cold & raw, but not windy.
Interesting animal track & sign seen.
Elk track
Mountain Goat tracks
Chipmunk track
Pocket Gopher esker