Dirtyface Peak & Dirtyface Mtn

Trip Report

The scramble was on June 1st.

Carolyn Graham and Dennis Piontek's reports were very useful in our planning of this scramble.

We took Dennis's advice to heart and met at the Brickyard P&R at 4am.  On the trail at 6:30am.  The weather was cool and clear and besides having to climb over some logs in a few select places, the hike on trail towards the lookout was no problem.  No snow on the trail, lots of beautiful flowers and  no bugs.   

We also skipped going to the lookout and at about 4mi (5350') we left the trail and headed up 100' or so to a ridge.  We then hit snow as we started dropping down to a basin NE of the lookout.  As we headed down, we got our first view of Dirtyface Mtn, a peak in front of our intended destination, Dirtyface Peak.

 

A good snow finger allowed us easy passage over some rocks to near the basin floor.

From the basin we moved northwest for the ridge (5600') next to Dirtyface Mtn.  The route to the ridge on snow was no problem.  As we climbed towards the ridge there was less  in some areas.    Once at the ridge, we get our first sight of Dirtyface Peak.

We followed the ridge, sometimes on the ridge and sometimes traversing either side of the ridge to the base of Dirtyface Mtn and then onward to Dirtyface Peak. 

The last bit of scrambling to the summit was fun and was Class 3.  I have never seen so many clumps of tweety lewisia, a most beautiful wildflower.We spent about 1/2 hour there, signed the register and started down.  It was about 3pm now.  

When we reached the base of of Dirtyface Mtn, we stopped to take a break.  The summit, bare of snow didn't look very far up so we dropped our packs and headed up.  We were on the summit at 5pm.

Back down and going again at 5:30pm and back at our cars by 9:15pm.

Hard earned peaks at 15 miles and 6700' of elevation gain (per Andrew's Garmin watch,) but what a great day with an excellent team.  We were very fortunate with the conditions and best of all, no bugs! 

Andrew's stats:

Time of day	Time since start
6:30:00 AM	0:00	Begin hiking
9:15:00 AM	2:45	Depart ridge heading down into basin (begin off-trail)
9:55:00 AM	3:25	depart 5600’ saddle
11:10:00 AM	4:40	arrive at ridge at approx 5700’ to start ridge walk toward Dirtyface Mtn.
1:40:00 PM	7:10	arrive at base of Dirtyface Peak, begin Class 3 scramble
2:10:00 PM	7:40	Arrive Dirtyface Peak
2:40:00 PM	8:10	Begin descent
4:30:00 PM	10:00	Begin side trip up Dirtyface Mountain
5:30:00 PM	11:00	Resume return travel from base of Dirtyface Mountain
7:20:00 PM	12:50	Reconnect with trail
9:15:00 PM	14:45	Arrive at parking lot

 

 

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