Live to be outside: Dumbell and Greenwood

(posted out of order)

Susan and myself decided to scramble Dumbell and Greenwood mountains. These are both fairly high, and situated in the same area as Fortress, Mount Maude and Seven Fingered Jack.

Day 1 - A 2 x 2 x 2

It started as it always does, with the alarm clock (phone) waking us up too early, in this case sometime just past 4am. We made some coffee and were in the car shortly after en route to Phelps creek TH, via the town of Sultan. The Sultan Bakery opened at 6am, and we were there promptly at the strike of 6. The place was already filled with people, there was the locals table and miscellaneous hikers spread out in the other part of the restaurant. Susan ordered a breakfast sandwich, me a 2x2x2 and we had a seat at one of the empty tables. A sandwich, 2 pancakes 2 eggs and 1 strip of bacon (I just couldn't do it) and two full stomachs later , we were heading out towards the Phelps Creek TH.

The trailhead turns out to be very busy, with parking only a hundred yards or so away from the actual trailhead. The first six miles lead along a perfectly manicured trail to Spider Meadows where the views start opening up. We sat down and had some yogurt for lunch and while enjoying the scenery.

Heading out from our lunch spot across Spider medows

After lunch we proceeded along the trail for another few miles to upper Phelps basin, where the trail ends and it turns to a cross country scramble. We made a little mistake by heading up the forest too soon, (when we should have stayed on the bottom until the head of the valley) but soon was back on track and heading up towards the Dumbell next to some waterfalls. It opened up to beautiful heather covered ledges, and we decided to stop for camp just where the heather turns to consistent snow and rock. This way we still had running water, nice greenery to look at, and mountains across the valley. We thoroughly enjoyed the camp and had our regular noodle dinner, while watching the sun set.

Looking up from uppoer Phelps basin. Our camp is towards the upper right of the picture.

Enjoying the sunset from camp.

Setting sun

Day 2 - 2 summits

We started the day by heading up to Greenwood. We passed by the basin below Dumbell where we met some other climbers heading up towards that peak while we passed them to get to Greenwood.

The path to Greenwood follows a narrow ledge system, which looks scary at first. It is very exposed and really pretty narrow. Most of the time you can walk but at times it slopes down, and the rock wall pushes you out towards the edge, requiring you to crawl a bit. It was fun, and soon took us to the saddle of Greenwood where a gentle ridge took us up to the summit. Time for a nap and lunch! There were some great views of Bonanza.

Traversing ledges towards Greenwood

Gentian

Summit views of Bonanza

Traversing ledges on the way back

After our obligatory nap, we headed back down to the saddle and back across the ledge system for a pursuit of Dumbell. Turns out it was quite a plesant scramble, but with an inital steep (and a bit loose) gully to take you up to the ridge crest. But again, soon we were on the summit again! A bit more bugs on this summit and a bit too warm, so we didn't stay quite as long as we did on the summit of Greenwood.