Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Guye Peak (winter)
Beautiful day for a holiday scramble - snow conditions were iffy but weather was nice
Paul Kallmann
- Mon, Jan 17, 2022
- Winter Scramble - Guye Peak
- Guye Peak
- Scrambling
- Successful
-
- Road suitable for all vehicles
-
Started from Summit West parking lot -- trail was covered in snow. Snow started off firm enough not to need snowshoes, but it wasn't long until the post holing began. Snowshoes needed for the rest of the trip. Snow had a high water content from recent rains making travel challenging even with snowshoes, but with hard work and perseverance, our group successfully summited.
Led a group of 6. We had three scramble graduates from Seattle and two scramble students from Olympia who I gave permission to attend as they had done Red Mountain with me last May. We met at 8 at the Summit West parking lot and then headed across the street to start up the trail.
Fellow Olympia Scramble Leader Matthew Pahs had done Cave Ridge two days previous so we had good beta and a GPS track that we could follow up to the 4,400 foot level and then traverse up to the Guye / Cave Ridge saddle. We then turned south and headed up the top of Guye. We used snowshoes and self belay to get to the rock band at 4,800 feet and then found boot tracks from presumably a trip from two days previous up a snow covered ramp and then up to our final 200 feet to the true summit.
After lunch and summit photos, we returned the same way we came up. We took off our snowshoes for a glissade from the base of the rock band down 200 feet or so. We put on the snowshoes and then headed out. We saw two other parties of 2 but otherwise had the route to ourselves.
Pace was a little over 4 hours up due to the snow conditions. Total trip time was 7 hours, 12 minutes - 5.9 miles, 2,168 feet gained.
Gaia track is here:
https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/track/9a190e43267569b497e880337d3ff102b9a55d21/