Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Skinwood Peak
A fun new route I submitted to the Mountaineers database. Off the beaten path where nobody goes. Ideal for students.
Ron Jones
- Sun, May 3, 2026
- Alpine Scramble - Skinwood Peak
- Skinwood Peak
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Begins with a short road walk followed by the most awesome trail, giving way to a meandering and undulating ridge traverse that begins withe open forest to a rocky ridge, and finishes with some gorgeous slide alder to a treed summit with some views, a summit sign and register
Skinwood Peak, or maybe it should be called SkinShin Peak :)
It's actually the headwaters for Skinwood Creek which flows through the Big Creek Loop under the Troll Bridge.
Skinwood was a new discovery for me this past January. A buddy of mine who was exploring the back side of Mt Washington, noticed it, and looked it up. We tagged it on January 25, 2026 during the big winter snow melt off. I felt it would be great student scramble and got it into the Mountaineers database.
The route begins with a short road walk to the Jefferson Trail #800. The trail is in phenomenal shape. It's about a 1 mile climb to the saddle where you head off trail and follow a meandering and undulating ridge. The ridge is mostly open forest that turns to a mostly open ridge with a few brushy bits. When you reach the final summit block, it gets progressively more crabby with denser brush, slide alder and downed trees. While the true rock scrambling is minimal on the ridge, there are some fun features to play with T-3 and T-4 sections.
As a student scramble we spent time with map and compass navigating the ridge. It's a good scramble to teach navigation.
The last lingering snow, which felt awesome on a hot day when we returned.
Our first view of Skinwood (right), and our ridge path (left)
This fun feature of pillow lava, that's fairly chossy, can be skirted, but we chose the fun way up and over.
Nearing the top of our little rock feature which gains a nice ridge run
Not many representative photos after the ridge and on the summit block. We were too busy navigating some crabby vegetation and downed logs/trees.
Our summit photo - one member is behind the camera. Behind us a summit sign hung by a friend and I brought a summit register.
Back on the road and near the cars
Stats and Summary. Our watches were all over the place. I've got two tracks - one that was 5.75 miles and this time only 5 miles. I'd say it's 6 or so. It took us 8 hours on this day, but last time I was closer to 7. And the gain was between 2000' and 2,200'. It's a deceptive little ridge the way in which it undulates. The contour lines are misleading. And the way out has a bit of up.
Besides the snow patch, there is no water except on the road, and at the bottom of the trail.