Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Tolmie, Howard, Rust Ridge, Alki Crest and Florence Peak
Nice and sternuous trip recommended for fit parties. Beautiful meadows, thick vegetation and bugs didnt deter us from bagging 5 official peaks and 3 sub peaks along the way. Could save time and energy if done a key exchange from carbon river trail
Ananth Maniam (ஆனந்த் மணியம்)
- Sun, Jul 28, 2019
- Alpine Scramble - Howard Peak & Tolmie Peak
- Howard Peak & Tolmie Peak
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Road suitable to drive. Made it to the trail head by 7.30 and had some parking spots along the trail head. The trail all the way up to Tolmie peak is well maintained and the rest of the trip was through meadows, thick bushes and some nice rock scramble.
Some sections however had some faint climbers boot path , but the section from Howard to Rust Ridge (i'm assuming the least traversed) was great navigation excercise through trees and some bushwhacking
Overall Trip report
8 peaks yesterday, missed out on Arthur peak.
With three awesome people, we started at Tolmie peak look out trail, hiked up to Tolmie peak look out, then onwards to Tolmie peak
Howard and North Howard
Dropped down to the meadows and onwards to Howard peak (more like a flat spot) then onto Howard north peak
Rust Ridge and scouting Arthur peak
That's where the straight forward hiking trail ends, from there we bushwhacked and scrambled our way on to Rusty ridge which was a technical scramble.
We did have some navigation challenges getting to the ridge of Rusty, once there we scrambled up to the summit carefully. I scoured the route to Arthur, but decided not to do it today.
Rust Ridge (detailed description)
Scrambling up the ridge after a mile of side hilling and bushwhacking (both together)
We get this glorious rocky ridge of decaying rock boulders to Rust Ridge (less traversed peak here) and onwards to the notch between it and Arthur peak
This small section definitely was an interesting rock scramble, where hand holds move, foot holds definitely move, boulders follow all the moving rock, but despite all of it, there are some sturdy rocks to traverse to the summit (just need the eye to spot it)
Once we were there, we decided not to do Arthur today, as it looked beyond the comfort levels of some of us. We dropped back and for the first time leading so many scrambles for the club, someof us wanted a rope for a move going down 
So @swapnildinkar and @ananthmaniam set up the rope while i scrambled down to do a fireman's belay. To my shitty luck, there was a snake almost close to where I was standing lol. I didn't know @mountrainiernps had snakes at high summits. It was about two feet long and 8mm dia.
Once we all got down, we bushwhacked into open streams and navigated to Alki crest peak
Alki crest and Onwards
Once back we bushwhacked a little bit to get to the notch between Alki crest peak and Alki crest. We did see some faint climbers trail along the ridge line and also when you drop a little to the left into the trees. Lots of fresh bear poop and bear grass all along
Florence peak
Tagged Alki crest and side hilled along the ridge to Florence peak and onwards to the true summit (which had some nice rock moves)
This is when I wished this was a shuttle trip, as we had to head all the way back
We traversed back onwards to Alki crest and Alki crest peak
Few participants were getting tired at this point after 10 hours of hiking. We navigated to the meadow below the Tolmie peak look out and on to the trail
Bugs were a plenty. But nevertheless a great day.