Eightmile Mountain

Eightmile Mountain (7,996 ft)

Looking at Sherpa and Stuart on the descent

Eric Gilbertson

June 7, 2020

I left Seattle early Sunday morning headed for the enchantments. I normally try to avoid the enchantments in the summer because of the crowds, but I had a top 200 peak there I needed to get and was hoping the rainy/snowy weather forecast would make it less crowded. By 8am I was hiking out of a nearly-full eightmile trailhead

Mostly open bushwhacking through the burn zone

parking lot. (I would later learn on Saturday there were over 700 people hiking up the nearby Stuart Lake trail!).

I made it to eightmile lake in about an hour and took a break at the outlet as a light rain and wind started. Surprisingly there was a construction vehicle there, some sort of backhoe-digger. I was a few miles into the wilderness, where such vehicles are supposedly not allowed. It must have been helicoptered in to work on the rock dam for the lake. There were several solar-powered security cameras around it, also surprising to see in a designated wilderness.

The view on the descent

I continued hiking around the north side of the lake until the trail petered out in a burn zone near the inlet. From there I had two options. Most groups seem to climb Eightmile Mountain via the steep east face, but the southwest face and west ridge side seemed much easier based on the topo lines and a report from Adam Walker on nwhikers. I had been hiking in my trail ru

Eightmile Lake down below

nners but packed my mountaineering boots, ice axe, and crampons in case I needed them.

I ended up deciding on the easier southwest face to avoid any navigation issues in sketchy terrain in the bad weather. I bushwhacked up eighmile creek a bit, then cut straight up an avy slide path due south of the summit. There were some brief bits of dense alder thrashing but it soon opened up into pleasant hiking and scrambling. I reached snow line around 6,600ft and switched into my mountaineering boots. I was able to boot up to the west ridge before it got icy enough to need crampons.

Lots of flowers blooming near the trailhead

I cramponed up a few hundred feet before the snow melted out, and then I scrambled up to the summit by noon. Unfortunately the summit was socked in a whiteout. It had been snowing on my most of the morning, but briefly let up on the top. I hung out for a half hour hoping for a clearing that never happened, before descending.

This time I was able to carefully dig my heels in on the icy snow and avoid needing to put on crampons. I plunge-stepped down and eventually the clouds lifted enough for me to get a few views of the enchantments. Mt Stuart was socked in but I got good views of Sherpa, Argonaut, Colchuck, and Dragontail. I soon continued down, retracing my route back to Eightmile Lake.

On the hike out I saw a few people getting ready to go for a swim, and that sounded really cold, especially since I’d been getting snowed on all day. I passed quite a few other people hiking up before I made it to the car around 2:30pm and started driving home.

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