Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Humpback Mountain
The snow is almost entirely melted out except for the last steep section to reach the summit.
Danielle Graham
- Wed, May 30, 2018
- Alpine Scramble - Humpback Mountain
- Humpback Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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We drove up to the higher starting point and the forest service road works perfectly for "regular" cars with one turn you will want to take slowly. The climbers path is steep and lovely, with the exception of a few toilet paper blooms that have appeared since I was last there a few weeks back. (Angry face) No snow on the actual summit--just on the last 20 feet up to the summit ridge.
We had a nice quick trip up Humpback, meeting at the High Point exit at 7:30, picking up another participant at exit 47, and swapping some stories as we prepared. We left the trail head at 8:30, arrived at the summit around 10:30, departed the summit at 11:00 and returned to the trailhead a few minutes after 12:30. Scramblers from Seattle were able to skip traffic in both directions. Two students joined us; one attained his graduation rock scramble! Three participants recorded their first ascent of Humpback. Mother Nature played peek-a-boo with us today; we got a slight glimpse of Silver Peak before we left, but the clouds kept us from seeing across the highway or towards Rainier. We had warmer weather than predicted, though, allowing us to relax on the summit and do some friendly measurement to find out where the highest point of Humpback truly is. We tagged both, just in case. Many thanks to Richard Burt for mentoring today.