July 17, 2004

Mt. Constance Day Climb

Lake Constance
Avalanche Canyon
Mount Constance: inner peak aka Inner Constance Peak (7667′)

——————– Trip Report Summary ——————–

Region: Olympic Mountains (Washington)

Sub-Region: Constance – Buckhorn Group

Area: Olympic National Park

Starting & Ending Point: Dosewallips River Road washout at 600 feet

Way Points: Lake Constance Trailhead (bike ride & bike push);  Constance Creek & Lake Constance & Avalanche Canyon (trail hike & off-trail hike & rock scramble)

Summit: Inner Constance Peak (ascent & descent via Southeast Couloir—South Defile—South Gully—East Ridge  [Route 2A] )

Approximate Stats: 16 miles traveled (8 miles on bike + 8 miles on foot); 7300 feet gained & lost; 6.6 hours up; 3.9 hours down.

——————– Related Posts ——————–

Mt Constance: Outer Peak via South Side + Inner Peak Attempt – July 29, 2013
Mt Constance: Outer Peak via South Chute—Finger Traverse—South Ridge – September 13, 1998

——————– Full Trip Report ——————–

Several years ago, on a typically foggy day in the Olympics, I managed to grope my way to some high point on the inner (west) peak of Mt. Constance.  I couldn’t tell at the time whether it was the true summit, but over the next couple of years, I grew to suspect it was the nearby false summit or some other slightly lower point.  Obviously, a clear-weather repeat was required to resolve this uncertainty.  I also wanted to leave some of Laura’s ashes on a good Olympics summit, and “Inner Constance” seemed like a very good summit.  Last Saturday’s high pressure system prompted my repeat attempt.

As with all of my past Olympics adventures, this one began at a ferry dock amidst the odors of salty air and creosote.  Even at 5:00am, the air temperature was a balmy 60 degrees;  this would undoubtedly be a hot day in the hills.  I had my trusty mountain bike mounted topsides to use for the Dosewallips River Road, which is still closed due to a washout at Milepost 9.7.

After arriving at the road-washout gate several hours later, I pushed my bike up and over the detour trail that the Park Service has established above the washout.  This is actually a nice trail—unless you happen to be pushing a mountain bike—but not entirely new.  Judging by some of the log cuts along the way, I estimated that the trail had been established decades ago, perhaps during a prior washout.  Once across, I saddled up and rode the deceptively gentle 3½ miles of road to the Lake Constance Trailhead (0.75 hours from car).  I say “deceptively” because it looks so flat but actually gains 1000 feet.  I was exhausted by the time I dismounted!

After stashing my bike in the woods, I spent the next 1½ hours huffing and puffing up the trail to Lake Constance.  There is nothing deceptive about this trail;  it looks steep and it is steep.  The air was becoming quite hot and humid by now, and I had consumed half of my water supply by the time I reached the lake (2.6 hours from car).  This worried me for the long afternoon ahead.

I hiked around the sunny, emerald-green lake and worked my way up Avalanche Canyon, which is barren, rocky, and devoid of shade.  A climbers’ track comes and goes among the rocks, but progress was always easy if not quick.  The climatic and geographic diversity of the Olympics becomes apparent while walking across the basaltic scree and talus here;  one gets the impression of hiking in the Columbia Plateau desert land of Eastern Washington, but this canyon is only 30 miles from the Hoh Rainforest!

Eventually, I came to a broad couloir that begins just north of The Thumb (4.4 hours from car).  My intention was to follow what the Olympic guidebook calls Route 2A, which is noted to be “an excellent descent route.”  I headed up the couloir on firm snow until near the top, then veered right and continued up a steeper secondary couloir.  The guidebook gets a little vague about what to do next;  it says to turn right up a narrow, snow-filled defile.  OK, I felt confident that I could recognize a “defile” easily enough.  The only problem was that I could see two such features.  Hmmm.

I tried the upper defile first, based entirely on the universal climbing maxim that the correct route feature (be it a notch, gully, horn, or whatever) is always the one farthest from your current position.  This defile initially looked straightforward, but it became steeper and trickier as I ascended.  After encountering a large Class 4 chockstone about halfway up, I decided that this couldn’t possibly be considered an “excellent” route by any measure.  Besides, this defile had no snow, and the guidebook did refer to the feature as a “snow-filled defile.”  Back down I went to check out the lower defile, grumbling about having wasted precious time.

Although the lower defile did contain a snow finger, the finger wasn’t continuous to the top, and it necked down to about 2 feet wide in one spot.  I kicked steps up the hard snow finger, which was moderately steep and had a 5- to 10-foot-deep moat on each side.  Getting over the 2-foot constriction caused me a little concern, but I was able to make generally good headway until the snow became breached part-way up.

There was no alternative but to cautiously step across the moat and onto the adjacent rock wall.  I then scrambled up the moat until able to get back onto the snow farther up.  After encountering another breach and having to stem over to the rock again, I was able to climb scree to the top.  This brought me to a little snow basin below the intimidating summit cliffs, feeling relieved to have that defile done with.

From the snow basin, the guidebook says to climb northward up a steep snow couloir to the east ridge.  I was dismayed to see that this “couloir” was actually an unappealing gully with a discontinuous snow finger bounded by deep moats—much like the reviled defile!  I spent the next half-hour or so repeating the same monkey maneuvers as I’d used below:  kicking steps, stemming onto the rock, scrambling the moat, stemming back onto the snow, then the rock again.  It was slow and a bit unnerving, but a final pitch of Class 3 rock gained me the east ridge crest.

From my notch in the east ridge, the summit block looked high, steep, and difficult.  Thankfully, it turned out to be none of these.  Instead, a fun Class 2-3 scramble on solid pillow basalt soon put me on top (6.6 hours from car).

Although it was past mid-afternoon and the descent would be long, I felt compelled to rest up and rehydrate.  Besides, the view was outstanding!  This summit is well-positioned for gazing at the entire Olympic range, and I could see nearly every peak that Laura and I had climbed during our past five years:  The Brothers, Stone, Cruiser, Olympus, Mystery, Deception, and Angeles.

Each and every peak constituted a unique adventure that we both recalled with great fondness.  I poured some of Laura’s ashes on the summit, which would now become her permanent Olympic outpost.  I also left a small summit register, since there was no existing one to be found.

At 4:30pm, I started down.  Descending the gully and the defile was every bit as nerve-wracking as I feared it might be.  I stayed in the moats as much as possible, since the snow had such bad runouts, but this entailed down-climbing numerous rock steps.  At one point in the gully, I had a scary incident:  As I was kicking through a thin snow-bridge where the snow finger necked down to almost nothing, a refrigerator-size block of snow above broke loose and knocked me aside as it crashed down the gully!  This gave me quite an adrenaline rush—as well as fleeting visions of a large pancake wearing boots and a helmet!  Luckily, I hadn’t been in a position where it could pin me against the rock face.

Eventually, I reached the friendly snow slopes of the lower couloir and quickly boot-glissaded down to Avalanche Canyon.  To the south, the late-afternoon sun highlighted The Brothers, which served as my beacon during the long rock-hop back to Lake Constance (2.0 hours from summit).  From there, I could look back and clearly see my route up the snow defile, the snow bowl, the snow gully, and the east ridge.  Now it all seemed so obvious.

A knee-jarring plunge down the trail and a refreshing cruise down the road got me back to my vehicle by 8:30pm (3.9 hours from summit).  This hadn’t been my longest or most difficult climb of the season, but for various reasons it was my most physically and mentally tiring.  All in all, it would surely become one of my many treasured “Olympic moments”!

Route Comments:  Route 2A might very well be an excellent route up and down the mountain when there is adequate snow cover.  It offers directness and relatively easy routefinding (by Olympic standards).  However, when the snow starts to melt out of the defile and gully, what’s left underneath is unpleasantly loose rock and scree.  Early summer would be the best time of year for this climb, in my opinion.

Nomenclature Comments:  If there is one unnamed peak in the Olympics worthy of its own name, this is the one.  As the Olympics’ fourth highest mountain (and fifth highest peak), it deserves better than to sneak in on the nomenclatural coattails of neighboring Mt. Constance.  I don’t know who got the idea that “Inner Constance” would suffice as a formal name (common reactions to this nickname are “What’s an inter constance?” and “What inner constants are you looking for?”), but I hope the official geographers eventually correct this oversight.

——————— Route Map / Sketch ——————–

—————— Photo Gallery (click to enlarge) ——————-