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Basic Rock Climb - South Early Winter Spire/South Arête

A fantastic day on a Cascade classic with four people getting their final climb completed for the Bellingham BMC.

Krissy Fagan Krissy Fagan
August 14, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • A very well established trail with signage takes you to the climb, which is composed of beautiful Washington pass granite. Most of the rock is fairly solid, however there are areas with loose rocks as any alpine objective may have. The route is easy to follow with the fourth class having a well worn path. 

Our group was originally signed up to climb Lundin (London or Lundeen, that is my main question) Peak down near Snoqualmie, but because of potential weather, not knowing that peak, and the size of our group we decided to punt to South Early Winter Spire. We wanted to give our students the best chance of getting a rock climb done so they could graduate from the basic mountaineering course. 

We met in the parking lot of the Blue Lake trailhead at 6 AM. We quickly sorted out ropes and radios, and departed from the parking lot at about 6:20 AM. Our group chatted as we walked the trail, making our way up to the base of the climb. I haven’t been back to this climb since the route was improved and the trail was worked on. I am so thankful to walk on a nice trail instead of the old climber’s path that went up there. By 8:20 Audrey had taken off up the first pitch, and we were on our way!

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We had two teams of two, and one team of three. Audrey’s goal was to get ahead so that she could set a fixed line across the whale back that we would all then hop on and move quickly up to the summit.  This worked out beautifully especially because we were the only team on route. We made it to the summit in three hours, where we all donned more layers and had a long break sharing snacks.

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Climbers utilized the fixed line to descend from the summit, and a few climbers asked to have another rope for the next stretch of fourth class. Between Audrey, Dima and I we were able to leap frog each other to make that a possibility and before we knew it all climbers were at the rappel stations (big thanks to NCMG for the rappel stations). We continued to leap frog ropes down and before we knew it, everyone was back on the ridge at just about two and a half hours after leaving the summit.

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We packed up our bags and made our way back down the trail, encountering goats and taking in the views. Our return to the parking lot was exactly 11 hours after we left, and everyone was so happy for a spectacular day at Washington Pass. Big congratulations to the climbers that checked off their graduation climb!

(On a side note, I would love for a button to rotate these images. Sorry y'all for the wonky pictures)