Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Fools Day Peak
Successful summit on the most appropriate day to climb this peak.
David Judish
- Wed, Apr 1, 2026
- Winter Scramble - Fools Day Peak
- Fools Day Peak
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Snow and ice on road
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The French Cabin snow park was closed for the season. No snow park pass needed after 3/31 per website.
The road is not gated and in the absence of snow, a Prius was able to drive to 3200' before being blocked by snow.
5th annual April Fools' Day ascent of this peak. In this tragically low snow year, what is normally a 9-mile, 3000' foot day was instead 4 miles and 2000'.
We elected to leave snowshoes at the car and were happy with that decision. We didn't run into consistent older snow until about 4200', by which time we had ascended the steeper section of the climb. A firm base with 2" overnight snow made for good traction without use of ice axe or microspikes on the ascent.
In the spirit of the day, cries for help led to a faux emergency in which all the scramblers simultaneously became stuck in tree wells. That crisis being managed, spirits were high the rest of the way to the summit, where no views greeted us this day, but the forecasted precip held off until we were back at the cars in 4.5 hours including carefully choreographed clownish photography at the summit.