Lichtenberg and Union June 15-16, 2013

This was the first real backpacking trip of the summer. Sam, Sarah, Derrick, and I decided to embrace the snow and go in search of some peaks. We set our sights on Lichtenberg, Union, and Jove off of the Smith Brook Road on the east side of Stevens Pass. We headed out Saturday morning and began our hike a little after 10:00 am. The road still had some snow patches so we had to park the car just before the first set of switch backs. We walked the road to just a little bit before the big hairpin turn to the point where the creek was very near the road and we were in line with the ridge up to Lichtenwasser Lake. From here we took a barring and headed up the ridge line almost due south. On our way up we crossed a fishermans trail and followed that up towards the lake. There was even a handline set out along one steep section. Overall the going to the lake was pretty easy and we were there in a little over an hour. Snow did not become consistent until around 4,600 ft. 

This is where we crossed the creek

Taking a break from 'shwhakin up the mountain

Lichtenwasser Lake

The lake was mostly frozen with some melting around the edge. There were still several feet of snow pack, but the tree wells were starting to melt. We set up camp and dug out a table for lunch. It was a beautiful warm sunny day. After lunch and a little relaxing we began our walk up the northeastern ridge of Lichtenberg. The snow was nicely compacted and the walk was really nice. It was very strait forward, not too steep and had increasingly nice views. We pulled out our ice axes but there were really only a few short section where we needed them.

Our campsite table

Glacier and Union Peak as seen from the ridge

Making our way up the northeastern ridge

Before too long (under and hour) we reached the base of the summit block. Directly in line with the ridge, the peak juts up as a cliff so continuing on our current trajectory was not an option. We were worried about skirting to our left because of the large cornices we had seen along the bowl. Instead we decided to poke around to the right and see how that looked. It started as a nice climb up the snowfield, however, we started to become unsure how and where we would be able to transition from the snow to the rocky summit. Sam continued up ahead and found a spot where we could safely step off the snow although it was slightly precarious. There were about 20 feet really steep snow that started to push my comfort zone and make me really thankful for my ax. 

This is where we came up

Once we were all on a little bit of solid ground it was time for the final push to the summit. This last section was about 20 feet of rock climbing/scrambling. There were good holds the entire way, but falling here would not have been pretty. Once on top we all let out a little sigh of relief and took in the amazing view. 

Up on solid ground

The panoramic view from Jove to Hinman

From our new vantage point we could see that there was one break in the cornices on the southeastern saddle that would have been possible to climb through. In hind sight, I would have preferred to traverse the bowl and then come up the southeastern ridge (which is an easy walk to the summit), but our route got us where we wanted to go. 

Large cornices above the bowl

Steward poking out

Glacier Peak

McClausland in the front the Monte Cristos and Sloan in the back 

We made it!

So did Sam...

...and Sarah!

Steep slopes on the northern side

A nice hangout spot a bit north along the ridge

Looking toward Lake Valhalla

After about an hour on the summit we headed back down to the lake. We were able to glissade two short runs in the bowl, but there were enough trees that we had to plunge step a lot of the way. We hit one pretty slick spot that gave Derrick, Sam, and I some practice with our self arrest skills, but overall the descent wasn't too bad. 

We glissaded near the bottom of this photo

The next morning we headed back down towards the road. We walked about 1/4 of a mile past the hair pin turn and headed up the much overgrown trail that leads towards Union Gap. We later learned that there is a newer trail that goes directly from the turn in the road, but our USGS map didn't show this.We took the trail until it flattened out and headed up the ridge line toward Union. The going was slow. We stayed right along the spine of the ridge which is rocky in places. We didn't hit snow until over 5,000 ft and even then it was patchy and not very ideal. I think this walk up would have been more pleasant a few weeks ago with a little more snow coverage. We found this bushwhack much slower than the one up to the lake.

Lichtenberg from the road

We made our way up to the unexciting peak of Union and decided that we would call it a day. We were pretty tired after our previous day and were worried the extra ridge walk to Jove was going to put us home pretty late that night. Going back down was much easier than we were expecting which was a pleasant surprise. We felt pretty good about our decision to turn around because it began to rain pretty hard once we hit the road. Coming down Union would have been much harder in the rain. We made it back to the car at around 3:30 and were feeling pretty accomplished from our weekend of scrambling.  

Our approximate route