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Basic Alpine Climb - Pinnacle Peak & The Castle

Climbed both Castle and Pinnacle Peaks with a group of 12.

Ralph Wessels Ralph Wessels
August 15, 2016
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Dry trail with water running in a few stream locations that offered a welcome splashing of the face on the way down.

Our group of 12 from Kitsap and Seattle met at the Pinnacle Peak TH just after 7:30.  Introductions, getting MOFA leads, going over the climb plan, and gearing up made for a 8:00 start.  Reached the end of the trail in about 50 minutes.  We split into two groups with half going to Castle and the other half to Pinnacle.  None of us had done Castle before.  We went up the ramp and crossed over to the east side of Castle.  There are several routes to choose from and the rock was very good for climbing.  None of the weathered rock found on Pinnacle.  For Castle, a few smaller cams, set of nuts, and hexes were used by most of the leads.  Only about 6 people will fit on the top so splitting the climb team into two groups worked well.  We used the existing rap ring to rappel down.  We decided to not go down the ramp and instead follow the visible trail southward.  The easiest route we found was to go a little bit to the south and then go over the ridge and work back towards the ramp.  By 12:30, the Pinnacle group was back at Castle with the Pinnacle group just departing.  By this time, the temps had warmed up considerably.  We decided to scramble up with a hand line available to those who might want it but none of the group used it.  The first group had set up a new rappel station (which was left for future users) that goes around a large rock.  It is a nice place to rappel from and we used a double rope rappel.  The negative was the rope got stuck and eventually one of our group scrambled up and untied the two ropes so they could be easily pulled.  The other group returned as the last rappeler was coming down Pinnacle.  All of us reconnected at the end of the Pinnacle Peak trail as that had nice shade for those not retrieving the rope.  Back to the cars at 5:30 PM. We had a wonderful group of people on the climb and everyone had a great day.

Of note that places used in the past to set pro on Pinnacle, which were not plentiful, seemed to have disappeared.   Still a great view from the top.