Lightning Bolt, First Ascent

Lightning Bolt (8,830ft), First Ascent

NW Buttress to NE Ridge (5.5 M1 steep snow, 300m)

Eric Gilbertson and Nick Roy

June 6-8, 2026

We found another unclimbed peak in WA, and this one is tall enough and prominent enough that it might potentially become a new Washington Top 100 peak in coming years. Lightning Bolt is located between Thunder Peak and Mt Logan and is officially unnamed and not directly surveyed on the USGS quads. It is near the standard Banded Glacier route up Mt Logan, but is technical and had no knowwn previous ascents according to Washington mountaineering historians we consulted.

Mt Logan was first climbed in July 1926 by Lage Wernstedt, and Thunder Peak was first climbed in July 1972 by John Roper, Tindall, and Melom. Thunder Peak was later climbed via the East Ridge by Lowell Skoog and Silas Wild in Sept 1999. Lightning Bolt was never climbed, though. The peak is not visible from any road, and the most common viewpoint to see it is from the approach to the Banded Glacier route, while crossing Christmas Tree Col. From this vantage point, Thunder Peak looks taller than Lightning Bolt, but this is deceptive because Lighting Bolt is farther away.

From this view Lighting Bolt looks like a smaller subpeak along the ridge, and this may explain why it wasn’t previously climbed. Based on the USGS quads it is within the same elevation contour intervals as Thunder. In 2023, though, airplane-based LiDAR measurements were taken, which were made public in 2024.

I analyzed the data using QGIS surveying software and found Lightning Bolt is in fact 28ft taller than Thunder. LiDAR can have errors of +/-1.7ft vertical on summits like this, but even with the worst errors, Lighting Bolt is still taller. This is important because it means Lighting Bolt is the true summit of the Thunder-Lightning Bolt ridge. The key col for Lightning Bolt is then the Lightning Bolt-Logan col at the head of the Banded Glacier.

Interestingly, this col is glacier, not rock. Based on the 2023 LiDAR, I measured the prominence of Lightning Bolt was 323ft. That was accurate in 2023, but is very likely not accurate now in 2026 because the Banded Glacier is melting down significantly. Pictures from the 1960s show the glacier spanning the whole face between Logan and Thunder, extending down to the valley bottom. Now there is a large lake on the bottom and the glacier only covers a small fraction of the upper face.

I’ve been tracking the elevation change of a glacier on a nearby peak, Eldorado, which is at a similar elevation to the Lightning Bolt-Logan col. Between 2024-2025 the ice summit of Eldorado melted 7ft, so I would estimate the Lightning Bolt-Logan col is melting down at a similar rate. That means, between 2023-2026 the col could have melted around 21ft, giving Lightning Bolt a current prominence of around 344ft.

To the south of the col and farther below is a ridge of mostly rock connecting Lightning Bolt to Logan. The LiDAR data shows that elevation is around 8445ft, but it appears to me the LiDAR data shows it much smoother than in more recent pictures I’ve seen, meaning LiDAR was likely picking up snow.

I expect, if the current glacier col eventually melts down to rock, the new key col will be the rockier col. But the snow on that will also melt down. So the LiDAR prominence will be at least 385ft. However, the summit is likely slightly taller than measured by LiDAR since it is very sharp, and the rocky col is likely deeper than measured by LiDAR since LiDAR only measured the top of the snow. Thus, I estimate when/if the key col melts down to rock, Lightning Bolt will have somewhere between 390ft – 400ft of prominence. I can figure out the exact number if I bring my GNSS surveying equipment in there in late summer.

The 400ft threshold is significant because that is the prominence threshold for a peak to qualify as a Top 100 peak in Washington. (Note: other states have different thresholds – New Hampshire and Maine have 200ft thresholds, and Colorado, California, Montana, and Wyoming have 300ft thresholds). Lightning Bolt is tall enough to qualify for elevation at approximately 8830ft, so if it additionally met the prominence cutoff, then it would become the 30th tallest peak in WA.

At the current melt rates, I estimate the key col will melt down within a decade or so. It’s possible prominence will not stabilize until then, and only once the col melts could I measure its prominence to the rocky col precisely enough to know if the peak qualifies.

With the peak of such potential significance, Nick and I set out to make its first ascent. We had each taken a lot of pictures of it in the past. I’d made the second winter ascent of Logan with Ryan Stoddard in March 2021 via the Douglass Glacier and had pictures from the Lightning Bolt-Logan col. Nick had also climbed Logan in summer 2021 and had more pictures.

It looked like all routes up the peak were technical, with the shortest route options on the NW face starting from the Banded Glacier. Our plan was to follow the standard Banded Glacier approach for Logan, get to the Lightning Bolt-Logan col, and then figure out a way up.

The timing for this approach is important because the Banded Glacier melts out significantly by summer, exposing challenging crevasse and ice conditions. The ideal time of year is likely May – June, while the ice and crevasses are still covered in snow.

The weather for our intended weekend was not ideal, but we thought there might be a gap between storm systems sunday afternoon/eve. Hopefully that would be enough time to tag the summit. I would have liked to survey the summit elevation, but it’s a tough call on an unclimbed peak with unknown route to bring the additional weight of surveying equipment. I didn’t want to decrease chance of success of summitting, so I decided to bring the surveying equipment instead on a future trip during late summer when I could measure the col at the correct time of year and would hopefully have a good route figured out by then.

Saturday morning we picked up a permit at the Marblemount ranger station and started up the Thunder Creek trail by 8am. It had been raining all morning but luckily eased up as we started. We made good time up the freshly-cleared trail, and thanked the trail crew we met along the way sawing out trees.

By 1pm we reached the standard Banded Glacier turnoff from the Fisher Creek trail. It’s just after a double bridge across the creek draining the 5200ft tarn north of Peak 7880. The trees were mostly open and we hiked up the steepening slope. Higher up we occasionally picked up a faint climbers trail, but it was fleeting.

By 3pm we reached the tarn at 5200ft and bushwhacked along the ridge east of it. There’s a big flat area to the SE of the tarn that looks like easy walking on the topo map, but it’s actually swampy and best avoided. We hiked around it to the SE, then hiked up the big fan coming down on the south. Interestingly, there was a heavy snow squall while we were at the edge of treeline, and I think snow level was down to 4500ft that day. That’s not too common in June.

We soon put crampons on as we hit continuous snow. At the head of the fan we turned left, passing below a big triangle-shaped rock outcrop, then leftbpast a rectangle outcrop. From there we hiked nearly straight up to Christmas Tree Col around 7500ft. Unfortunately there were no Christmas Trees in the col, and also no view of our objective. I’ve read other climbers say there’s a Batman-like rock near the col that you aim for, but we didn’t see that.

The south side of the col was totally melted out, and we scree surfed down to the lake at the base by 6pm. The lake was still frozen over, but we found a nice melted out flat spot on the rocks on the shore to pitch camp.

That evening the clouds were blanketing the peaks above, so we didn’t really get any views of Thunder, Lightning Bolt, or Logan. We set up the mega mid with bivies inside and were asleep by sunset.

Sunday morning our forecasts had precip continuing until early afternoon, so we decided to strategically sleep in. We did poke our heads out of the tent at 6am and verified the summits were still socked in. We napped through snow squalls for a few hours, then by noon we got up and started moving. Our goal was to be at the col by 2pm when most weather models said the clearing should start.

We marched through the snow around the lake shore, then up the snow slope that used to be the Banded Glacier. Around 7800ft we reached the remains of the glacier with some crevasses showing. We roped up there and initially tried a line going directly to the col. That turned out to be too steep, icey, and crevassed. So instead we traversed climbers left to the rocky base of Thunder Peak. We then hiked up to the base of the Thunder-Lightning ridge, and traversed back right on a hogsback feature.

We stayed close to the rock cliff traversing, then asended to the col by 2pm, right on schedule. Unfortunately the weather wasn’t on schedule, and the area was still socked in with dense clouds. We could only see 5oft or so. The cliff above looked technical and covered in several inches of fresh snow. We ascended as high as possible on snow to a spot directly below the notch NE of the summit. This was our planned ascent route, but the rock in this area was either slightly overhanging or slabby with limited cracks for pro.

That sounded challenging to climb in crampons and boots. We continued traversing NE along the base of the cliff, and saw some options that were also challenging. We were about to start up one that would likely require aiding, but then there was a short 1-minute gap in the clouds. We then saw a lower-angle buttress coming down that looked a lot easier to climb. It was soon shrouded in clouds again, but we decided to give it a try.

To get to it required down climbing a steep snow slope. We roped up and Nick took the lead climbing down 100ft to the base of the buttress. We found a good belay ledge there, Nick led up the first 30m pitch. It was fun 5.5 M1 climbing with plenty of cracks and holds. I’d give it 5 stars. There was enough snow and ice on ledges that it made sense to climb in crampons, though we didn’t feel the need to use tools.

At a small notch we started the next pitch, where Nick led up 60m of similar terrain to reach a gendarme on the ridge crest. During that pitch another snow squall started, and the predicted clearing definitely was not on schedule. At the ridge crest we found mellower 4th class terrain. From there we simul-climbed towards Lightning Bolt with Nick in the lead.

We scrambled up and over three gendarmes, with the last one requiring some exposed downclimbing. But the holds were good. That got us to the final notch below the summit, and Nick led the last pitch to the top by 5:45pm.

There were no cairns or rap anchors or any signs of previous climbers, meaning we were likely the first. I placed a small summit register under a cairn and we hung out for a few minutes taking pictures. Unfortunately the weather never cleared. We belayed each other downclimbing back to the NE notch, then slung a horn for a rap anchor.

Our 60m rope doubled up barely reached the snow below, which was perfect. We pulled the rope, then followed our ascent route back down to camp by 8pm. With the long days, there were still a few hours of light left, so we packed up camp and hiked up to Christmas Tree Col.

Just then the clouds finally cleared from the peaks, and we got a brief view of Lightning Bolt. But the clouds closed in soon after. We plunge stepped back down to treeline by 10pm, just when it got dark enough to need headlamps. From there we bushwhacked back down to the trail, and hiked out to Junction Camp by 12:30am.

We laid out our bivies and luckily there were no bugs. The next morning we hiked out three hours back to the trailhead.

 

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