Truck abandoned along the stream
The weather forecast for Sat. looked decent so we
were looking for a smallish scramble with a short driving time. Web
mountain, accessed from Exit 38 off I-90 sounded like it fit the bill.
We were pretty tired from the week so ended up sleeping in and then
packing in the morning. We made it to the gated road that leads to the
State Patrol Fire Academy mid-morning and started hiking the paved road
at 10:30 AM. We managed to miss the turn-off from the road to the
abandoned road bed (east at about half a mile) and so spent an extra 30
minutes on the paved road. We got back on track and followed the road
bed about 2.5 miles to its termination with a stream. We then headed
east up snow slopes in order to gain the west ridge of Web. Our path
was not optimal and we ended up doing a fair amount of bushwacking, but
we eventually made it to the west end of the ridge. We then followed a
trail
which moved between the ridge proper and the north side of the ridge.
After a mile, we came out of the trees and had some good views of the
surrounding peaks. We were also exposed to periodic gusts of strong
winds. As we climbed higher, the ridge narrowed and the wind gusts
became stronger and frequent, which made the scambling over or around
the rock formations on the ridge proper a bit more interesting. As we
neared the summit, we dropped onto the north side of the ridge for
shelter from the wind. We donned crampons for extra security since the
snow was hard and wind-blown in this section. We reached the very windy
summit at about 4:00 PM. After a few snapshots, we headed down the
north bowl. We made good time down to the stream basin and found
the road bed near dusk. We took a longer food and water break here and
then hiked out to the trail head with our headlamps. We reached the
Jeep at around 7 PM. The trip distance was about 11 miles and 4000'
elevation gain.
Truck abandoned along the stream
Elain on the very windy summit
View towards Rainier from the summit
View of I-90 from the summit
Steve descending the north bowl