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Trip Report    

Winter Scramble - Silver Peak

A challenging but fun winter scramble to Silver Peak via Annette Lake trail. We made the best of it despite the weather.

Matt Surprenant Matt Surprenant
March 30, 2025
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • Trail: hard packed snow started around 3000' (in the middle of the first set of switchbacks - microspikes were required in the morning but not in the afternoon. There were a few creek crossings, but none were too difficult.

    Off trail: it was snow covered to the summit. The snow under the trees was firmer and easier to travel on, but not hard enough to require crampons. We used snowshoes. However, the rocks on the ridge were not completely covered with snow so they were a bit difficult to traverse in snowshoes. On the way back we removed our snowshoes, and it was much easier.

    Road: full of potholes but snow free. (Thankfully it is short!)

    Weather: snow showers in higher elevations and rain in lower elevations. About 40 degrees at the trailhead and probably around freezing at the summit. Light winds. 

    Avalanche conditions: Moderate. There was some fresh snow, but it was sticking pretty good to the crust. However, we tried to minimize our risk by staying in the trees as much as possible and then sticking to the ridge.

We had a great day in the mountains despite the weather. 

We followed the trail until about 1/8th of a mile from the lake. We then made a left turn and basically headed straight up the mountain. We put on snowshoes at this point. The off-trail part starts fairly mellow but gets steep pretty quick. We stuck to the trees to avoid any risk of avalanche (although the forecast was moderate - the snow made us cautious). The snow in the trees was easier to ascend anyways because it was firmer, so less post holing.  There is a line of trees that basically take you all the way to the ridge. 

At the ridge, we encountered a choice: either traverse across rocks that were partially covered by snow or go through thick trees. We tried both choices, but neither was appealing. If the avalanche conditions had been lower, it might have been easier to diagonally cross below the rocks and ridge to the "summit gulley". Also, a little bit less snow would have made it easier to ascend the rocks with just boots on. In our case, we slowly made our way across the rocks until reaching the gulley that leads to the summit. That last part was fairly easy compared to the traverse.

At the summit we had no views - you could make out the lake and Abiel, but that was about it. Either way, we had a challenging day, so that made it worth it.

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On the descent, we removed our snowshoes and plunge stepped down. That made it a lot easier to traverse the rocks (in retrospect, that would have been a lot easier on the ascent, but we also didn't feel like taking the snowshoes on and off a bunch). As we got closer to the bottom, we also got some glissades in, but we mostly kept to the trees (if in low avalanche conditions, you could probably glissade most of the way down).

We returned to the cars wetter than we started and a bit more tired! Total day was about 10 hours. Overall, a great day - I might have to go back (via the summer trail) to see the views!