Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - McGregor Mountain
Great Fall scramble of McGregor Mountain in North Cascades.
Rodica Manole
- Thu, Oct 2, 2025 — Sat, Oct 4, 2025
- Alpine Scramble - McGregor Mountain
- McGregor Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
-
- Road suitable for all vehicles
-
The approach trail easy to follow until you get in the scree / boulder field below the summit block. The ledges (on the scramble route) were easy to follow (there are some painted orange arrows aiding the route finding) but definitely there are some exposed sections were making a mistake is not an option. Once we got to the notch and popped on the north side for the last 200 ft or less we encountered some slippery rock.
We carried 3 l of water each but we discovered there was easy access to running water around 5500 ft.
Our trip itinerary:
Thu 10/2:
-drove to Fields Point Landing and took the the 9:15 AM Lady Express up lake to Stehekin
-rode bikes to the Bakery (short stop) and continue to Tumwater Campground where we camped for two nights
Fri 10/3:
- started hiking at 5 AM (followed the Stehekin Valley Road , crossed the steheking river via Tumwater bridge and continued hiking until we met PCT which we took until we got to the Howard Lake from where we took the McGregor trail.
- summit at 12:00 PM + 20 min taking in the views and having lunch
- back to camp 6 hours later at 6 PM (we stopped for about 30 min for blueberries picking (around Heaton camp) for our next morning breakfast
Sat 10/4:
- packed camp and biked back to Stehekin with obligatory stop at the Bakery
- decided to join the locals and visitors for Harvest Festival at Buckner Orchard; Awesome experience we had harvesting and processing apples for hours and enjoying live music, food and camaraderie of a shared harvest experience
- wrapped up the day with a short Lake shore hike and spent the night at the North Cascades Lodge
Sun 10/5:
-bakery for breakfast, garden visit and took the boat back to Field Point Landing
More pics to be added
