Lane Peak, as viewed from Narada Falls
The weekend weather forecast looked unfavorable for climbing, with rain and thunderstorms predicted for both west and east of the Cascade crest. Elain and I discussed several possibilities, and eventually settled on attempting to climb Lane Peak. We got an early start, and reached the Narada Falls trailhead at 8:15 AM. By 8:30 we were walking. It was drizzling and gray. Through a brief break in the clouds, we saw that the north facing couloirs on Lane Peak were still snow-filled. The trail was easy to follow, but when it started switch-backing up the hill towards the Stevens Canyon Road, the trail was covered with several feet of hard-packed down-sloping snow, along which we were forced to sidehill tediously. A couple of times I slipped and fell into devil's club alongside the trail. When the trail came near to the road, I heard the sound of cars and realized that the road was open. At this point we left the trail and started gradually descending toward the southeast. We crossed a couple of small creeks, and eventually reached the far side of the Tatoosh Creek valley, where we turned toward the west. We side-hilled along snow-covered slopes, crossing through a bit of brush, before reaching a side avalanche funnel with two distinct couloirs leading up from the top. It was raining steadily, and fog obscured much beyond the start of the couloirs. We reckoned this was the start of the Zipper Couloir of Lane Peak.
We had intended to take the Zipper Couloir (the left branch), but Elain liked the looks of the couloir that went off to the right. The right branch turns out to be a route called "The Fly". Up we went. The recent heavy rainfall and cloudy weather had softened up the snow; we kicked big bucket steps up the couloir. The first 700' was moderate angle snow up to 35 degrees. The couloir steepened a bit for the final 300', reaching 45 degrees just below a notch in the West Ridge, which we reached at about 12:15. A short scramble east from the notch got us to a saddle, from which another gully descended southeast toward the Lane-Denman Col, and a narrow gully ascended east toward the summit. After a break for lunch, we started up the gully. The gully narrowed to a narrow, vegetated chimney, above which we reached another notch in the ridge. Above the notch, we observed a rock face that led up into the fog, and appeared to be 4th class. Freezing rain was falling pretty hard, and the rock face was very wet. Elain set up a belay, and I started up somewhat apprehensively. The rock was the usual (friable) Tatoosh rock, and quite slippery. A few moves up, things got steeper, maybe low 5th class. After I trundled down a couple of rocks that narrowly missed her, Elain started to wonder out loud if this was a good idea. I spied a ledge higher up that would make a good belay, so I kept going. About half way up to the ledge, I found a rusty fixed pin that I eagerly clipped into. With a mixture of thrutching, cursing, and aiding with my ice tool, I reached a ledge about 80' above Elain. The ledge was just about 20-30' below the summit. On the other side of the summit would be a scramble descent route. Belaying Elain up to me, the rope drag was terrible. Elain climbed up wearing her plastic boots and overmitts, and I heard a few muffled complaints about the wet, loose rock. Just below the ledge, she slipped and bumped her chin on a rock protrusion. When she arrived at the belay, her jaw was hurting. We decided not to attempt the final bit to the summit, as the moves looked harder than what I wanted to lead given the wet rock. We set up a double-rope rappel using the 8.5mm lead rope and a 6mm rap cord, and were soon back down at the notch. We were surprised that the time was already 2 PM. We descended an easy gully to the Lane-Denman Col, and then descended back to Tatoosh Creek. On our hike back to the Narada Falls trailhead, we got a bit off course in the forest and ended up 200' above the road, on the slopes below Pinnacle Peak. Once we reached the road, we made good time back to the Narada Falls trailhead, which we reached at 5:30 PM.
We later read that there is a scramble route to the summit, which we could have taken had we followed the normal (left) branch of the Zipper couloir, which reaches the east ridge of the mountain. We are hoping to go back and climb the scramble route in winter.
Gear we used: ice axe, 8.5mm x 50m rope, 6mm x 50m cord, ice tool, small rock rack.
Things we learned:
Lane Peak, as viewed from Narada Falls
Our climbing route is shown in red. The dotted line is the portion
of the route that is on the other side of the mountain.
The base of the Zipper couloir. We chose the couloir on the right.
Steve climbing up the couloir
Looking down the couloir from the notch
Elain at the notch, after descending from the summit
Elain packing up for the hike out
Elain descending towards Tatoosh Creek
Lane Peak, as seen from the northeast
Pinnacle Peak, as seen from Stevens Canyon Road