Deadhorse, Grindstone, Ladies Pass, Cape Horn, Wildhorse... a friend organized this trip for no other reason than she found the name "Snowgrass" interesting. Lots to recommend the Chiwaukum's besides the place names as you can see from our two day trip to scramble the 7993' peak in the heart of the range.
We drove to Leavenworth and followed the Icicle Creek Road to the trailhead for Chatter Creek #1580. The trail climbs 3900' to a pass east of Pt. 7112 drops down and following the "hiker only" path connects above Lake Edna with the Icicle Ridge Trail #1570. You cross pretty high on the NE shoulder of Cape Horn following the trail away from Lake Edna, so it's difficult not to take a quick and easy side trip to scramble to the top of the 7316' peak. From Cape Horn, drop to Ladies Pass pick out Flora and Brigham Lakes to the north, contour with some ups and downs across the basin of Spanish Camp Creek to Upper Lake Florence where we camped.
We scrambled Snowgrass early the next morning, following the trail from the lake as it heads toward Lake Mary. From the trail at 6800' roughly south of Lake Mary, we could see our destination and elected to side hill across to the basin where the creek feeding Lake Mary is shown. Quite steep slopes with wet vegetation had us wondering why. But it worked
We picked the path of least resistance climbing north to gain Snowgrass's south ridge mid way between the summit and Pt. 7593. I can't tell for sure just where we made the ridge, due to the low blowing clouds and mist, but it was south of the wide low angle portion of the ridge shown on the USGS map. So far a strenuous but easy scramble. We reached a small cairn and figured that we were on the top. That is until the mist lifted a bit and we could see marginally higher ground close to the north. To get there we had to drop into a very exposed notch and climb 30' up the rock face on the other side. Only one in the group elected to give it a go and he made it without incident. We returned to camp, rolled everything up and got back to the car after dark. A late dinner in Leavenworth ended a great trip.
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