Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Mount Si Old Trail
After work scramble of the Mt Si Haystack for Summer Solstice
Jacob Whitbeck
- Tue, Jun 21, 2022
- Alpine Scramble - Mount Si Old Trail
- Mount Si Old Trail
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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There is currently no snow at Mt Si -- none on trail nor up the haystack. We surprisingly encountered very little rock fall hazard scrambling up. Rock is solid in good conditions on the scramble with a few sections of veggie belay if you stay to climbers left.
A group of 9, 6 students, 3 leaders, started up the Mt Si Old Trail from Little Si parking lot a little after 5pm. We made decent time making it to the bench before the Haystack in around 2 hours 30 mins including several breaks. We helmet up and switch to boots at the bench.
Short trail leads you up to the base of the scramble.
There was concern for potential rockfall since we are a large group. We decided to split into groups of 3. 1 Leader 2 Students each.
First group heading up
While there are many ways to go up, our route generally followed the side of the gully system traversing up and left. Eventually trending right to hit the saddle before heading up left again on the summit block.
The summit block is a bit more exposed than the gully system but has great hand and feet holds. We took our time with students to ensure things were safe. 
It took each group around 15 minutes to ascend the scramble with some gaps between as other parties started to head up between us.
We took around a 20 minute break for snacks and views at the top.
After the break, we break into our group of 3s again but this time do not worry as much about spacing between parties.
Crux and bottleneck is coming down off the summit block before hitting the gully system so we took it slow and safe.
We descended a slightly different route down the gully system. Always looking for the path of least resistance and making sure it's easy and safe for the students.
Eventually all groups made it off the scramble. I forgot to time us but slightly longer than ascending, maybe 20 mins.
We made it off the scramble, helmets off, trail runners on for those who brought them, and started our descent. 
We were off the scramble and boulder section near the lunch view before darkness hit.
It took us slightly longer than expected so had head lamps on and descending in the dark down the old trail.
We reached the parking lot around 11 pm. Overall trip time almost 6 hours. After a short debrief the group was happy to be done and head home.
This was a great trip for summer solstice and a great first mentored scramble lead. The haystack was better than expected and leaves me wondering why it's not done more often.