Lennox Mountain

Lennox Mountain (5,894ft)

One of the big cornices on the ridge

April 13, 2020, Eric

I had a holiday Monday so left town at 6am with snowshoes and mountain bike headed for the national forest northeast of north bend. I figured this area would be remote enough not to have any other people. My plan was to bushwhack up Lennox Mountain from the southwest side, also making it likely I would have the route to myself.

I expected the steep south-facing slopes of the bushwhack to be melted out, so brought snowshoes instead of skis. I was uncertain of the road quality, so brought my mountain bike in case I couldn’t drive to the end of the road.

Last picture of my bike at the start

After two hours I reached the end of the driveable stretch of road on the north fork snoqualmie river below Phelps Peak at around 2,000ft elevation. Snow started and soon got very deep, so I backed up and parked on the side of the road.

By 8:15am I biked up from there following some ruts in the snow from a truck, but the ruts soon stopped so I hid my bike in the woods and continued on snowshoes. Surprisingly there were fresh ski tracks in the snow, probably from Sunday.

At the turnoff road to the old Blackhawk mine below McClain Peak one set of tracks diverged while a single set continued. I wished I had brought skis because it was a long stretch of flat snow-covered road. But I moved pretty fast on the firm morning crust. At the end of the road I started bushwhacking left up the hill, and the ski tracks followed my intended route. I was roughly following Chad Straub’s GPS track from peakbagger.

Summit view

There were a few melted out sections but generally continuous snow that got deeper as I got higher. The trees soon opened up and it was pleasant bushwhacking. I climbed to the col just southeast of point 5070 then followed the ridge. It was tricky with huge cornices to the left and steep dense trees to the right. The snow had drifted so

Lennox Mountain on the right

there were deep cuts in between drifts that I had to downclimb then climb up the other side. I generally stayed in the trees to avoid the cornices.

Eventually the terrain mellowed out and I reached the summit around 12:45pm. I enjoyed the sunshine and minimal wind for a while. It was impressive how much terrain was open above treeline there, despite the relatively low elevation.

By 1:15pm I headed back down, using snowshoes on the mellow parts and crampons on the steeper sections. By 4:15pm I made it back to where I’d dropped my bike off. There were now fresh tire tracks in the snow and footprints around, and my bike was gone!

The view of McClain and Phelps Peaks while hiking back down

I thought I’d hid it well, and had put it past the point I expected anyone to drive. The people in the truck apparently stole it. They left the helmet on the ground where my bike was, so I’m certain I was in the right spot.

I walked back to the car and drove out. I saw two people near the river who said they’d recently seen a Toyota 4runner with a black mountain bike strapped on the top. My mountain bike was black, and I suspect that was my bike. I drove back to north bend and drove around a bunch of neighborhoods, but it was a futile search. I’ll just have to buy a new mountain bike and hide it better in the future. (Locking it to a tree doesn’t do a whole lot of good because the people that drive trucks back in those roads generally have chainsaws to saw out trees anyway).

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