Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Lichtenberg Mountain
Original objective was the main summit but the snow got pretty tough to deal with and we called it a day at the east summit
Tobias Bajwa
- Thu, Apr 17, 2025
- Alpine Scramble - Lichtenberg Mountain
- Lichtenberg Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road impassable/closed
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Last couple of days were warm and forecast for the day called for sunny + 10C/50F. Snow firm enough on the road (snowmobiles hardened everything) afterwards hard enough on the slope below Lichtenwasser but then increasingly soft and post-holy past the lake. Big cornices at the ridge as expected.
Our group of 11 got moving around 8:30 (maybe slightly later than I would have liked; part of that is me not factoring in sufficient time for the stop at the Sultan Bakery). Anyway, forest road snowed in so we parked at the big paved area a bit to the east and walked from there. Forest road was "plowed" by snowmobiles and thus snow was pretty firm and crusty in the morning making for easy travel.
First challenge was to find a creek crossing. We tried first right past the fork for the creek coming down from Lichtenwasser. That didn't work out. Snowbanks are at least 3 feet or so on each side with no snow bridges inside. Tried again a bit further uphill, same result. In the end there was a straightforward crossing close to the summer trailhead where the creek is pretty much hugging the road.
From there we want straight up the N ridge towards Lichtenwasser. There was one short section that required a small traverse as we approached a rock band and we took out helmets and ice axe here. Otherwise smooth travel using microspikes only.
Lake is still frozen with a thin coating of snow on the top, we crossed it close to the shore to avoid the harder travel in snow, at this point postholing fun commenced. After the lake we continue a bit more in just spikes and then decided that putting on snowshoes (I mean we brought them anyway!) was the way to go. Much easier travel with good flotation from there going forward.
Crux was as expected to the figure out a path up to the SE ridge of Lichtenberg. Corniced pretty much all the way and some of them were really tall! We definitely did not want to travel anywhere near them especially since there was evidence of recent breakoffs with some big chunks sitting in the snow below them. We saw some ski tracks that zigzagged from E Lichtenberg coming down a manageable slope that bypassed all cornice hazard. Good choices were made and we found ourselves on top of the East summit around 2:30.
At this point we would have to do a short traverse down to the saddle between the two peaks. It's definitely doable but there is a bit of exposure that requires some care (proper ice axe usage and removal of snowshoes). Since it was getting late we decided as a group to call it quits here and be content with bagging the East summit.
Snow was really soft on the way down. Without snowshoes I was sinking in knee-deep at times. A couple of good glissades were had! Back at the cars around 6pm.