North Craggy and Eightmile Peak

North Craggy (8,205ft) and Eightmile Peak (7,840ft)

May 22, 2022

14 miles biking, 8 miles hiking

Sunday I planned to increase my washington top 200 peak count and I specifically wanted to target peaks that I wouldn’t be tempted to ski and that I could do solo. I wasn’t sure when I could leave Saturday so didn’t want anyone relying on my plans. And it’s getting close enough to summer expedition time that I want to minimize risk of injury. Snowshoing is much lower risk than skiing, even if it’s a bit less fun.

North Craggy was my lone top 200 peak left in the Pasayten, and fit the bill nicely. Satellite images showed the road and lower trail approach snow free, so I was optimistic I could make fast time. I even planned out a few surrounding peaks to climb if there was spare time. I did recall Luke Helggeson had gone into this area of the Pasayten around this time last year and said the road was blocked by a rock slide a mile or so before the trailhead. I figured this could happen again, so I decided to bring my mountain bike just in case.

I headed out Saturday afternoon and made my way up the Eightmile Creek road. I’d last been here in February and March 2021 when I’d snowmobiled up to the Billy Goat trailhead to climb Ptarmigan and Lost Peaks (first winter ascents I believe). There had been no blowdowns on the road then, so I was optimistic the road would have been cleared by snowmobilers this winter/spring.

However, a fire had apparently gone through the area last summer, and the situation is now different. I passed a few sawn out logs over the road from the burned areas, and saw many trucks and jeeps in the campgrounds along the way. Just past Honeymoon Camground I encountered a half dozen cars parked along the side of the road and there was a big blowdown cluster just beyond them. I later learned they were climbing Big Craggy and West Craggy.

I pulled over and scouted it out. It was still about seven miles from the trailhead, so if I could just get past this cluster I figured I could potentially still get to the trailhead. I had come prepared with a chainsaw and ax, so it could be possible. Just to make sure I thrashed through the blowdowns on foot and jogged up the road a bit more. There were a dozen more blowdowns, but then it seemed to clear out.

It was too early for me to fall asleep, so I figured I might as well start clearing and maybe it would pay off. I quickly chainsawed out the first big tree and managed to roll the pieces away. But then my chainsaw stopped working. I just have a little electric one, and I guess I’d forgotten to charge the battery fully. I have a spare battery, but I had for some reason left that at home. There was still one really big tree left and a half dozen smaller ones remaining.

I did have the ax, so decided to keep making slow progress. The big tree took quite a bit of effort, and I don’t think I’ve gotten that much upper body workout in a while. I eventually rolled the chunks off the road as it got dark, and I continued with the smaller trees. It was actually really fun, though kind of slow. I kept making progress until 11:30pm rolled around. I guess I’d lost track of time since it was so fun.

By then I hit another large blowdown that would take considerable time, so I figured I’d call it quits and take a nap before biking up. I drove the truck up to the next blowdown and went to sleep in the back.

2:30am came much too soon, but I still think the 2.5hr nap was helpful. I was packed and biking up by 3am.

It was tricky carrying the bike over and around blowdowns, but it was worth it for the open road sections in between. There were many blowdowns past where I parked, and they will take a while to clear. I eventually made it to the turnoff for Big Craggy and West Craggy, where I think the other hikers must have gone. I continued up, and soon got to the narrow section of road that I recalled had been tricky in the winter. I’d had to do a bit of sidehilling here towing my partners behind on skis. This time the section was littered with large rocks and a small rock slide on one side. The other side had washed out, making the road perhaps not even wide enough to drive. That will also take some work to fix.

Finally by sunrise around 5am I made it to the hairpin turn and ditched the bike behind a boulder. There had been only a few small patches of snow on the road up to here. It’s amazing how in the winter and spring just getting to the normal trailhead is a challenge!

I thought it very unlikely anyone would drive or walk up that far to steal my bike, but I’ve been burned thinking that before and gotten my previous bike stolen up a seemingle impassable road. I’ve learned there’s always a jeep or truck that will make it farther than I make it, and bikes are easy to steal. So I hid my bike behind a boulder and locked it up.

Progress was quick up the valley, and I walked alternately on talus or the icy firm snow. I eventually made it past the cliffs of North Craggy and turned west up the drainage. I walked steeply up the hill in my trail runners until the snow became continuous. I then changed into my mountaineering boots and snowshoes.

The travel was easy in the open forest, and I soon popped out at the frozen No Dice Lake. The cirque looked indistinguishable from winter, with the the steep snowy faces of Big Craggy and West Craggy looming above. To my left the west face of North Craggy rose up steeply. I’d read multiple reports that the direct route to the summit might be a bit sketchy. Fletcher reported it induced pucker, and Fred said one section was slightly spicy. Those were good indicators that I should find a better route, since I think they have a higher sketch tolerance than I do. Eric Eames reported taking a route closer to the col with Big Craggy and I decided to try for that instead.

I saw continuous snow up to the col, and the summit ridge didn’t look too bad. I put on my crampons and took out my ice ax and proceeded up. The snow gradually got steeper until I was frontpointing and using both tools – the whippet and the ice ax. Eventually I weaved my my up to top out exactly at the col.

From there the ridge was actually pretty tricky. It was very narrow with small cornices. At one point it was narrow and exposed enough that I needed to scoot across au cheval. The rock was very crappy and difficult to trust any handholds. Past the au cheval section I kicked steps up more snow, scrambled an exposed 3rd class traverse right around a gendarme, and then made it to the summit.

I had great views of West Craggy and Big Craggy, and kept my eye out for the other climbers there, but didn’t see anyone. I took a short break and managed to find the summit register in a small film canister. But it was a frozen blob of paper and I couldn’t unfold it without breaking it, so I left it unsigned.

I soon went back down the ridge, but this time I decided to avoid the au cheval section. Instead, just north of the col I scrambled down to the top of snow, then front point downclimbed all the way down to No Dice Lake. I think

that was actually a reasonable, unsketchy route in those conditions. But when the snow melts it will probably get worse with all the steep loose terrain.

I picked up my stashed snowshoes and continued towards Eightmile Lake following the route Matt posted on nwhikers. I found a nice snow gully that lead me directly to the col between West Craggy and Eightmile. At the top of the gully I followed the ridge north, alternating between deep soft snow and melted out 3rd class scrambling. Eventually I topped out on the summit, and was greeted by hundreds of ladybugs. This is oddly a common sight on summits in the Pasayten, though I’m not exactly sure why.

Interestingly, the USGS quad appears to label the summit location incorrectly. It labels Eightmile Peak as the subpeak 7756 to the north, while the true summit is a bit farther south. I tagged both summits, making sure to avoid the big cornices to the east. From the north summit I descended a reasonable gully, and wished I’d brought my skis. But I remembered I wanted to minimize risk of injury before summer, so I was ok not skiing down.

I plunge stepped until the snow softened, then snowshoed all the way down to Eightmile Pass. I had considered tagging on some bonus peaks, but for some reason I was kind of low on energy. It was probably related to all the axing last night then very little sleep. I was also lugging around a pretty heavy pack. If I tagged on the bonus peaks I estimated I’d get home around 4am or 5am, and I guess I wasn’t motivated enough for top 300 peaks to do that. Probably if I finish the top 200 peaks then I’ll get more motivated for top 300 peaks.

So I switched back to trail runners and hiked back down the trail. There were a few blowdowns to crawl over but it wasn’t too bad. By 3pm I made it back to my stashed bike, and I started cruising down. I expected at some point to come to freshly sawed trees in the road, and maybe see a Jeep or truck that had made it farther than I had. That always happens to me on roads like this. But, unfortunately, that was not the case. I still had to haul the bike over all the same blowdowns, and eventually made it to the truck around 4:30pm.

There were two more cars parked next to my truck, so at least some people benefitted from my log clearing. I was soon loaded up and made it back home at a reasonable hour.

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