Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Humpback Mountain
Mountaineers Rock Scramble with a very short snow section.
Jim Griffing
- Tue, May 27, 2025
- Alpine Scramble - Humpback Mountain
- Humpback Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road rough but passable
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Forest Roads 55 and 5510 are rough but passable for most vehicles. We parked at 47.36991, -121.51145.
We followed the gated road to the boot trail on Humpback's NW ridge. The boot path is easy to miss, but easy to follow once you see it.
There were no unexpected difficulties on the boot trail. Some minor blowdown and the usual slippery roots and duff.
There was a small snow patch near the top that required kicking steps and using ice axes. This probably won't be there for very much longer.
Snow patch near the summit
A group of eight Mountaineers (including three students) left the "trailhead" at 9 AM. The weather was clear, dry and a near perfect temperature for our adventure.
We walked along gated forest road 5510-110 for about nine tenths of a mile before heading up the ridge on a boot trail. The 5510-110 road is in great shape as it was recently "restored" after logging activity in the area. A few new "tank traps" must be crossed on the road - these provide drainage and discourage ORV's from using the road.
We walked past the boot trail but one of the students noticed that we had gone a little too far. Once we found the trail it was easy to follow up the ridge.
The boot trail took us to a small boulder field where we donned helmets and started scrambling. Another short section of boot trail through the thinning trees took us to more boulders to scramble over.
As we broke out of the trees there was a small snow patch that was steep enough to warrant the use of ice axes. We kicked some steps and walked up the snowy ridge for a short distance before the snow transitioned back to boulders the rest of the way to the top.
We spent more than an hour on the summit soaking in the views and the sun.
The summit log was retrieved from an almost unreachable location. The top of the PVC tube was missing so the log pages were soaking wet. We retrieved the log pages in hopes of drying them out and archiving them with the Mountaineers. We put a couple of new pages in a new plastic bag but did not have a spare tube cap with us. Perhaps the next group up can replace the tube and add some additional pages.
We headed back to the cars the way we came up.