Trip Date: October 10, 2004

Little Giant Peak Day Climb

Chiwawa River
Little Giant Pass
Point 7272
Little Giant Peak (7371 ft)

Trip Report Summary

Region: North-Central Washington Cascades

Sub-Region: Chiwawa Range

Area: Glacier Peak Wilderness

Starting & Ending Point: Little Giant Pass Trailhead on Chiwawa River Road (Elev. 2600 feet)

Way Points: Chiwawa River ford & Maple Creek & Little Giant Creek & Little Giant Pass & Point 7272 & Little Giant Peak summit (trail hike & off-trail hike & rock scramble)

Summit: Little Giant Peak (rock scramble via South Ridge)

Approximate Stats: 13 miles traveled; 5400 feet gained & lost; 3.8 hours up; 2.8 hours down.

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Full Trip Report

Little Giant Pass and Napeequa Valley are two nostalgic place-names from my early teenage years, when I was a “virtual hiker.”  Not having a means to actually go into the mountains, I instead spent countless hours poring over a well-worn map of the Wenatchee National Forest and dreaming up hikes.  Over the past 25 years, I’ve made probably a dozen treks to Little Giant Pass, Boulder Pass, and the Napeequa Valley from various directions, but my fascination for this little corner of the Glacier Peak Wilderness (which, incidentally, just turned 40 years old) has never faded.

Sunday morning, I headed up the Chiwawa River Road with no definite destination in mind.  This is not an unusual circumstance for me;  I have come to regard the Chiwawa River valley as synonymous with autumn, even to the extent that my mind cannot think the word “October” without envisioning the gently waving ryegrass fields at Atkinson Flats.  About 2 miles up-river from these picturesque flats, I found myself at the Little Giant Trailhead.  Not a bad place to start a beautiful fall day, I thought, so I grabbed the appropriate map and struck off.

Any hike up the Little Giant Trail involves a crossing of the Chiwawa River, usually by fording.  Luckily, I had a pair of rubber boots in my vehicle (I wear them for work, not as a fashion statement), and they came in quite handy for wading across a shallow point in the river.  I made it across without the water overtopping my boots—just barely—then changed into trail footgear and stripped down to shorts and a tee-shirt.  The east-facing hillside was warming up quite nicely in the mid-morning sunshine.

Since the Pacific Crest Trail got detoured over Little Giant Pass this season, I figured the trail would have benefited from extra maintenance.  Indeed it has.  Numerous ducks and small cairns have been placed along the sketchy trail segments, drainage ditches have been installed, and most of the brush has been cut back.  The recent snowfall wasn’t a problem either;  I arrived at the pass in late morning (2.1 hours from TH) having seen only traces of snow on the upper trail.  However, the other (western) side of Chiwawa Ridge was blanketed with several inches of snow down to approximately 6000 feet, as was the DaKobed Range across the valley.

My goal for the day was actually Point 7371, which sits about 1½ miles north of Little Giant Pass, so I headed up along the ridge. Rocky areas on the crest sometimes pushed me over to the snowy left side and other times pushed me over to the snow-free right side, but the travel was never difficult.  The only touchy spot involved scrambling over the top of Point 7272 on snow-covered Class 2-3 rock.

From there, I descended 100 feet to a broad, pumice-strewn saddle, then walked or scrambled onward to Point 7371, which is composed of distinctive red-oxidized metamorphic rock.  (Quick sidebar:  One danger of solo trekking is that it allows too much time for pondering inanities, such as why the digits in both 7272 and 7371 add up to 18.)

Upon reaching the summit (3.8 hours from TH), I was a bit surprised to not see a cairn;  surely this point has been traversed before.  I built a cairn and left a small register with the name “Little Giant Peak,” in reference to the nearby creek and pass.  Because this summit actually sits between James Creek and Little Giant Creek, those of you who have seen your share of children’s movies would undoubtedly arrive at the name “James & the Giant Peach Peak,” but I managed to restrain myself!

During my summit stay, the sun intermittently beamed through the clouds, and most mountains to the east were visible.  However, Clark Mountain and Buck Mountain never fully revealed themselves.

For the descent, I retraced my steps southward along the ridge until near the pass, at which point I angled down wide-open heather slopes to intersect the trail at a switchback.  About 1½ hours later, I was wading across the Chiwawa River and squishing up to the trailhead (2.7 hours from summit) in my stylish—ahem, I mean functional—rubber boots.  All in all, it had been a classically mild but moody October day in the eastern Cascades.

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