Trip Date: September 4-6, 2004

Spectacle Butte Climbing Trip & Carne–Leroy Loop on Ice:  Carne Basin to Ice Lakes to Leroy Basin

Carne Basin
Carne Pass
Box Creek Basin
Icebox Peak (8112 ft)
Box Creek Pass
Chipmunk Pass
Freezer Peak (8017 ft)
Freezer Pass
Ice Lakes
South Spectacle Butte (8392 ft)
Leroy Basin

Trip Report Summary

Region: North-Central Washington Cascades

Sub-Region: Entiat Mountains

Area: Glacier Peak Wilderness

Starting & Ending Point: Phelps Creek Trailhead at end of Phelps Creek Road (Elev. 3500 feet)

Way Points: Carne Creek & Carne Basin & Carne Pass & Rock Creek Pass & Box Creek Basin & Box Creek Pass & Chipmunk Pass & Freezer Pass & Upper Ice Lake & Freezer Pass & Leroy Pass & Leroy Basin & Leroy Creek & Phelps Creek & Carne Creek (trail hike & off-trail hike & rock scramble)

High Point: Freezer Pass (Elev. 7600 feet)

Campsites: Box Creek Basin & Upper Ice Lake

Summit: Icebox Peak (rock scramble via Northwest Slope—Northwest Ridge; descent via Southwest Slope)

Summit: Freezer Peak (off-trail hike via North Ridge)

Sidetrip: Lower Ice Lake & Spectacle Basin (trail hike & off-trail hike)

Summit: South Spectacle Butte (rock scramble via Southwest Ridge—South Face)

Approximate Stats (excluding sidetrips): 15 miles traveled; 5600 feet gained & lost.

Approximate Stats (including sidetrips): 26 miles traveled; 12,800 feet gained & lost.

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Full Trip Report

Deborah, Steve, Janet, John T, Beth, Kathleen, and I spent Labor Day Weekend doing the classic Carne Mountain High Route traverse from Carne Basin to Leroy Creek Basin, returning via the Phelps Creek Trail.  For many years, Deborah had been wanting to finally complete this “Carne–Leroy Loop,” and I was more than happy to repeat it for my fourth time.  Steve eagerly signed on for his fifth repeat, possibly so that he and John could entertain the rest of us with their non-stop shenanigans and horseplay.

Because our itinerary called for a sidetrip to Ice Lakes, I dubbed our trek the “Carne–Leroy Loop on Ice.”  Admittedly, the “on Ice” part nicely facilitated my desire to climb South Spectacle Butte, but ulterior motives aside, I’ve long regarded these two beautiful lakes as the highlight of the loop.  Anyway, we all would have opportunities to tuck in other summits during our three days out.  As things turned out, the phrase “on Ice” also served as an apt descriptor of our unseasonable weather for much of the trip; it was the coldest Labor Day Weekend that any of us could clearly remember.

Day 1 (AM): Trailhead to Box Creek Basin

The weather was cool and partly sunny as we hiked up the Carne Mountain Trail on Saturday morning.  By the time we crested Carne Pass and Rock Creek Pass, however, clouds had moved in and a cold wind had kicked up.  We wandered northward on the Carne Mountain High Trail, enjoying the scenic basins along the way.  Well, perhaps Janet didn’t enjoy them quite as much as the rest of us;  she experienced a bout of nausea and vomiting around mid-afternoon.  That derailed our progress for an hour, but we still made it to our planned campsite in the delightfully flat and grassy Box Creek Basin before dinnertime (5.5 hours from car).

Day 1 (PM): Icebox Peak Summit Climb

After helping to set up tents, Steve and John and I headed for the 8112-foot highpoint of Ice Creek Ridge.  We got separated on the ascent, and each of us had a little trouble negotiating some erosion gullies about halfway up.  I ended up on the ridge crest northwest of the summit just as a heavy fog and light rain moved in.  The ridge provided some fun Class 3 scrambling on decent rock to the viewless summit (1.0 hour from camp).

Steve appeared from the fog several minutes later, having done the same ridge route, and he reported that John had turned back earlier because he had a big pork-chop dinner waiting in camp.  There was a summit cairn but no register, so I left a small one.  Given this peak’s position between Ice Creek and Box Creek, I christened it “Icebox Peak.”  The name seemed especially appropriate at that moment, as an icy wind blew through us.  We quickly descended sandy scree slopes on the southeast side, then traversed northwesterly to intersect our ascent route.

Everyone else had finished dinner by the time Steve and I returned to camp in Box Creek Basin (0.8 hour from summit).  Fortunately, Deborah had reserved several of her trademark brownies for us.  (Anyone who knows Deborah knows that she never goes into the mountains without an offering of fresh-baked brownies for her partners!)  It was cold and breezy in camp, and an earnest rain started just after we all retired to our tents.  The rain continued intermittently through the night and early morning.  However, because Saturday was predicted to be the only wet day of the weekend, we felt reasonably confident that good weather would be coming soon.

Day 2 (AM): Box Creek Basin to Upper Ice Lake

The morning was cold, but the clouds were yielding to patchy blue skies.  We had a leisurely breakfast so that the sun would have time to burn the dew and ice droplets off our tents.  Once underway, we enjoyed strolling through the upper meadows of Box Creek Basin and over 7000-foot Box Creek Pass.

Rather than follow the trail down to Chipmunk Creek Basin, however, we stayed high and hit 7360-foot Chipmunk Pass just west of Point 8017.  Here, several of our group balked at the prospect of traversing the steep and uninviting scree slope that separated us from 7600-foot Freezer Pass.  Kathleen and Deborah lobbied instead for an ascent of the relatively easy-looking slope to the east.  I hadn’t tried this variation before but quickly acquiesced;  after all, Deborah controlled the brownies.  It actually played out quite well, and soon we were all on the ridge crest gazing down at Ice Lakes.

While the others descended talus slopes to the lakes, I ascended southward to the top of Point 8017 for a better view.  This point looks very impressive from Box Creek Pass and Ice Lakes but is really just “hands-in-pockets” the whole way.  I left a small summit register with the name “Freezer Peak,” in keeping with the “Icebox Peak” theme.

Fittingly, it was quite cold on this summit too.  An hour later, I had rejoined the group in our new campsite at Upper Ice Lake (2.8 hours from Box Creek Basin).  It was shortly afternoon when we all gathered for lunch on the expansive pumice-covered lawn surrounding camp.

Day 2 (PM): South Spectacle Butte Summit Climb

After lunch, Steve, John, Beth, and I headed over to South Spectacle Butte, while Deborah, Janet, and Kathleen explored the Ice Lakes environs.  We hiked down to Lower Ice Lake—an exceptionally picturesque lake surrounded by buff-colored pumice fields—and on down the steep Ice Creek Trail.

At about 6400 feet, we cut left and traversed talus, erosion gullies, steep forest, and heather slopes into the larch basin between the north and south buttes.  From there, we easily gained the south butte’s southwest ridge at 6900 feet.  Class 2 rock and talus took us up this ridge and around a 7400-foot spire, which Beckey recommends rounding on the right (south) side, and then on up to a second spire at 7700 feet.

It would be an understatement to say that Beckey’s benign route comment (“move to the south exposure…then regain the south ridge”) inadequately describes the situation at the second spire.  In reality, one encounters something that looks more like an impasse!  A rock rib and gully feature extends downslope at least 500 vertical feet below the spire, and the only obvious route involves an unappealing exposed traverse around the gully headwall on rotten rock.

We spent an hour checking out possible alternatives, but none looked any better.  Beth even scrambled up a Class 4 dihedral to the spire’s top in hopes of getting over, but she met a 10-foot vertical step on the other side.  At that point, Beth and Steve decided to concede defeat and head back to camp.  The brownies were calling!

John and I spent an additional 20 minutes revisiting each alternative, but we dismissed each one in turn.  As a last resort, I climbed 25 feet down a steep, chossy chute between the rib and gully, even though I was sure this would be fruitless.  Amazingly, a short traverse on white, down-sloping rock got me into the gully!  What had appeared unfeasible from above turned out to be fairly simple, although moderately exposed.

I belayed John across with our shorty rope, then we both scrambled a Class 3 dike up the gully to meet the ridge crest.  Our spirits were suddenly sky-high, and we moved rapidly up an intriguingly convoluted route that cut diagonally across numerous small ribs, gullies, and ramps.  We topped out at 5:20pm (4.6 hours from Camp 2).

Surprisingly, we found neither a cairn nor a register on the summit.  John rectified the first deficiency by building a cairn on what appeared to be the higher of the two summit knobs, and I rectified the second by leaving a small register.  The late-afternoon air was pleasantly mild, but we limited our stay to about 15 minutes, due to the waning daylight.  Our descent played out well, and we stumbled into camp around 8:30pm (2.7 hours from summit), just as it became too dark to see.

Day 3: Upper Ice Lake to Leroy Basin to Trailhead

The day dawned cloudless and beautiful, with an autumn briskness.  We broke camp and hiked up to Freezer Pass, where all seven of us dropped packs and ascended Freezer Peak together.  The views were marvelous on this clear morning, and everyone got a kick out of signing the mini-register I’d deposited the day before.  Having our whole group gathered like this on a summit was frosting on the trip for me!

From Freezer Pass, we followed a hikers’ path down to Leroy Pass, a 6850-foot saddle overlooking the Leroy Creek watershed.  We were now back on the Carne Mountain High Trail, which took us down to the south fork of Leroy Creek.  A swath of fresh-looking mudflow debris buried the trail along the way, and we split up to search for it.

Beth and I stayed low (circa 6100 feet), traversing northward through steep forest and gentle meadows, and generally making good progress until abruptly encountering an enormous erosion gully.  This MOAG (mother of all gullies) extended upward to the cliffs of Mt. Maude and downward as far as we could see, and it ranged up to 30 feet deep!  We were fortunate to find a reasonably easy crossing at a shallower (about 15-foot-deep) portion of gully closely below us.

Once across the gully, Beth and I ascended the north side in hopes of finding our five comrades.  We spotted them about 200 vertical feet uphill, still on the south side of the gully.  They were standing on the brink of a steep, 25-foot-high dirt bank—dwarfed by the gully’s size—setting up a belay rope.  I hiked upslope until directly across from the others, at which point I told them about the easy crossing downslope.  They were more than happy to drop 200 feet and re-ascend to the trail.  The remainder of our hike to Leroy Creek Basin (4.7 hours from Camp 2) was thankfully uneventful.

We lounged in the basin for an hour, while Beth and Steve sorted gear for their continuation to Mt. Fernow.  It was actually hot and, for the first time during our trip, felt more like early September than late October.  One by one, we bade farewell to our Fernow contingent and started down the Leroy Creek Trail.  By 5:00pm, the five of us were back at the Phelps Creek Trailhead (7.8 hours from Camp 2) to complete a most satisfying and classic loop.

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