Guye Peak, Cave Ridge and Snoqualmie Mtn. Scramble

September 5 , 2010
It's been 5 years since I was on Snoqualmie last and I've tried and failed twice before on the mighty Guye. Turns out that while I'm making progress in my Guye quest (hmm, might want to rephrase that) I have still not been completely successful, making just the north summit on this trip.

I'm still in the mode of trying to get my legs back after a long layoff, so easy to reach destinations with good trails and few navigation problems seem appropriate. Snoqualmie Pass area peaks always come to mind when that's the criteria but I don't go very often as most of my friends would rather eat dirt than join the throngs to scramble anything along I-90.

I left the Alpental parking lot crossed the street and hiked up the double track path/road to the trail at around 8:15a. It was overcast but dry and mild with little or no wind.

The trail up to the Guye - Sno junction slithers through the brush, not exactly overgrown just shoulder width snug. I think I might have been the first one to touch all the wet brush this morning. Long before I decided to stop and put on my rain gear I was soaked. The trail is easy to follow but I had forgotten just how rough this thing really is. It's a prime example of the principle of multiple use: it is trail, a nursery for talus and today, a water course.

Rooty and rocky it follows the path of least resistance around or below obstacles rarely doing any really beneficial switchbacking or seeking out a comfortable grade but it does get you where you need to go with minimal mileage. Sort of Aasgardish but with less vertical.

I reached the 4200' junction where the path splits (left for Snoqualmie right to Guye) and followed the vague path as it climbs rightward on a rising traverse across talus. It stays below the Cave Ridge cliffs angling upward (SE) to a 4600' saddle and another junction. To the right lies the path to Guye, to the

left a path to Cave Ridge and ahead (east) I believe the path drops into Commonwealth Basin. I took the right after a break and quickly came on a small pond. The path splits to go around both sides of the pond. I went up on the right and came back on the left. No preference. I made the top of the north peak and could only barely see the south summit in the murk even though it's just a couple hundred yards away.

I back tracked a short ways to the gully on the east side of the north peak that descends and then traverses to the middle peak. It had been misting ever since I left the junction and at this point was alternating light rain and ice pellets. The gully looked doable, but from what I had read the scramble to the notch between the north and middle summits was touchy to begin with and wet rock would only make it touchier. I decided to save the true (south) summit for another time. The quest continues.

Back to the junction and straight through this time heading for Cave Ridge. Decent trail easily followed. At the north end I passed some tarns and a cave with a sign and register. Leaving the tarns the path drops into a creek gully between Cave Ridge and the S ridge on Snoqualmie. An alternate might have been to go directly from Cave Ridge to Snoqualmie's SE ridge but I didn't have any info on a route there and without being able to see more of the ridge I didn't want to start something only to get dead-ended.

Instead I followed the mostly dry creek bed on intermittent tread down to about 4600'. I lost the path at that point, dropped another 100' or so in forest before coming out on top of what in wetter times would be a waterfall. It turned out to be just above the falls that the trail crosses. The scramble path for Snoqualmie was 50 yards to the west and just 1800' later I was sitting on the summit eating lunch, totally engulfed in clouds and it was snowing with some determination.

Uneventful steep descent back to the car. Not many out today, only saw a few others on any of the trails but there were still quite a few cars in the parking lot. Snow Lake trail must have been busy.