Ingalls Peak, Alpine Lakes Wilderness, Cle Elum, Washington
Mike at the top of the third pitch
Disclaimer: This climb involves rock climbing, which is inherently dangerous. This blog post does not include formal instruction of any kind. Please make sure you have the appropriate skills and knowledge before attempting this outing.
The Ingalls Peak South Ridge route is a technical four pitch trad climbing route. With Mike and I being interested in spending more time trad climbing and alpine trad climbing, we decided to check out the South Ridge on Ingalls Peak.
We parked at the Esmeralda Trailhead early on a Monday morning and set out from the trailhead around 6:30 am. We headed up the Ingalls Way trail for 3.25 miles until we hit Ingalls Pass. This is where we got our first look at the route we would be climbing. It looked a little intimidating! Mike reminded me that was why we brought a rope.
We took the higher of the two trails to Ingalls Lake as I figured the views would be better on that trail. We made it to the lake and then started our way up the combination of big rock slabs and gullies to the base of the route. It looked like we were going to have the route all to ourselves. We started putting on our harnesses and arranging our gear when we heard some other voices. Looked like we were going to have a party of two right behind us and another party of two right behind them.
Mike started up the first pitch, which was quite slippery, and had me hoping the rest of the route wouldn’t be as slippery as it was going to get steeper. I followed and then we made quick work of the easy second pitch.
The third pitch looked like it was going to be the crux of the day. Mike, who was on lead, decided he would take the 5.6 crack that went up the middle of the face as it appeared to have less moss and exposure than the crack that was supposed to be 5.4. He set out without really knowing where the next anchor would be, but it became obvious the higher he went. On this pitch, Mike made such a good nut placement that I wasn’t able to get it out, and it took two other people trying to finally get it removed.
Once I made it to the top of the third pitch, we had one pitch left. There were two crack options to take, and we were unsure which one would be the better option. After spending some time looking at each, Mike decided to take the crack that continued straight up from the anchors and this turned out to be a good choice. He went out of sight, but it didn’t take him too long to radio that he was clove hitched into the anchor. So up I went.
Once I made it to the top, there was a short, exposed scramble to the true summit of the mountain. We felt comfortable with the terrain so we untied from the rope and scrambled to the summit. We spent some time taking in the views and taking a break. I did discover a tick crawling on my shirt at this point, and I was glad I found it before it decided to become more attached. There we also an unusual amount of ladybugs on the summit - I’m still curious why that was!
Once we were ready, we decided to head back to the anchor and begin our descent. We would rappel all four pitches from the same anchors we used on the way up. All four rappels went pretty smoothly. We were worried about the rope potentially getting stuck on either the second to last or last rappel, but we didn’t end up having any issues. Once we got to the bottom, we put our trail running shoes back on, took off our harnesses, and packed up all of our gear. We headed back out the same way we came in with a long break spent at the lake. We made it back to the car in good time.
Overall, I had an awesome day. This was our first alpine trad multi-pitch climb that we did without a guide, and we are happy with the result of having such a great day in the alpine without any major issues. I think we are both ready to pick our next alpine climb!
Stats: 10.2 miles, 3800 ft of elevation gain.
