Warrior/Southeast Summit

We climbed Warrior Peak over 8/16-8/17. We started at the Upper Dungeness River trailhead. It was 6.5 miles to Boulder camp, follow signs to home lake, enter into the park in a mile, continue for a second mile to the cirque below warrior peak. We left the trail where the terrain opens up into a big talus field - there was a 4-ft tall cairn marking the turnoff at the time of our visit. Head up the talus slope and trend to the climber’s left to avoid the thick brush. It is all talus and scree up to the tarn. Camp at the tarn. it took 6 hours from the TH with a leisurely pace including breaks. From the tarn, you have a view of the warrior summits and the Royal Basin peaks.

It was an easy 100ft up to the upper basin and from there you’ll see the distinctive gulley between the two summits. We each enjoyed our share of scree to reach the notch. Once at the notch, you’ll see a snowfield on your right. The snowfield was icy and bulletproof, we put on crampons and ice axe and headed up the 100ft steep slope. head up the snowfield to the highest point towards an obvious right-slanting crack / chimney. continue up for 25 feet right of the right slanting crack all the way up to the ridge. We dropped our ice axe and crampons then climbed up the 5.2 face for 30 ft. it was face climbing with good hand holds and foot holds. We climbed up in boots but climbing shoes may be nice here. the face is unprotectable. There is a healthy looking bush about 50 ft up. After the 30ft of 5.2 face climb, terrain eases off quickly to class 3 and the summit is a 15-min scramble. Great view of Mt Olympus, the Royal Basin peaks, Inner Constance. The North face of Mt Constance was in and out of the cloud, we could make out the distinctive summit block.

We saw two rappel anchors heading down the right slanting crack, so it is possible to rappel down with a 60M rope instead of downclimbing the 5.2 face.
We highly recommend camping at the tarn instead of boulder camp if you have a small party of 4.

Wilderness camping permit is needed to camp at the tarn, call olympic national park wilderness info center, they emailed the permit following the phone call.

Required gear: helmet, crampons, ice axe
Optional gear: rock shoes, approach shoes, rappel rope

blueberries, huckleberries, and salmonberries are in!