Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Tokaloo Rock & Andrew
Surreal Tokaloo Rock formations plus a great conditioner with cooler temperatures.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Sep 9, 2017
- Alpine Scramble - Tokaloo Rock & Aurora Peak
- Tokaloo Rock & Aurora Peak
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Water still available, but many tarns (including Aurora Lake at Klapatchie Park) completely dry (still plenty at St. Andrews Lake). Ground bee hive encountered on connector trail from Round Pass to South Puyallup trail with a few people getting stings (the last person had 5). We opted for the extra 0.6 mile road walk on the way back to avoid this hive. Weather was a welcome respite from recent conditions with cool temperatures, clean non-smokey air, plus the rain held off until reaching the cars.
Ascended using the normal route (including a visit to Andrew) with a slight shortcut up the SSW aspect of Andrew using a zig-zag pattern (bunching up at turns) to avoid party inflicted rock fall. On return we left the standard route at the large dry tarn immediately NE of Andrew for a WNW descent for water at St. Andrews Lake (a very interesting rock on this portion can be seen here). From Klapatche Park we descended the Klapache Ridge trail to reach the west side road and the final hoof back to the cars for a total of ~6000' gain and just under 24 miles. Total trip time was 12 hours with 6 hours up. Photos from this (and other) Tokaloo Rock trips can be seen here.