alpinerack home

7,662 feet
South Ridge Grade II; 5.4

    Gear Used:
  • 2 60 meter half ropes
  • gear to 2 inches
  • slings
October 19-20 2009

The Approach

Ingalls Peak is one of those awesome alpine mountains that you can get to in under 2 hours from Seattle. From Seattle you drive I-90 over Snoqualmie Pass and into Cle Elum. Take exit 85 and drive Highway 97 for about 7 miles. Turn left on Teanaway River Road and drive till the end of the road and the Esmeralda/Longs Pass Trail head. There are a few forks in the road that can get a bit confusing for your first time in the area. Just follow the most obvious and most used road and you should end up at the right trail head.

The trail starts off following an old road along the river. Watch carefully as you quickly come to an intersection for the Longs Pass and Ingalls Way trail. The trail to Ingalls way can be hot in the summer but the cool weather of October makes it a perfect temperature! Once over the pass we hiked through the basin and up to Ingalls Lake.

Ingalls Peak
Headlight Basin was filled with gold!

We hiked around the West side of the lake to search for a camp spot that I noticed last year on an attempt of Mt. Stuart. After the outlet of the lake the trail either goes down into the valley or starts to traverse the ridge. The camp is just a few hundred feet along the ridge. It ended up being a great spot with views of Mt. Stuart and the Ingalls Valley!

Ingalls Peak
Mark hiking past Ingalls Lake and headed to camp.

The weather forecast was not that great for this trip. I was well prepared for showers and cold temps! We lucked out and stayed dry but woke up the next morning to frozen puddles but blue skies!

The Climb

We made quick work of the hike up the scree field and up to the dog tooth crags. We immediately started climbing in our boots until we made it to the first large ledge on the ridge. From here we set up a belay and pulled out the rock gear. I've climbed this route a few times so gave all the leads to Mark.

Ingalls Peak
Me belaying Mark up our first pitch.
Ingalls Peak
Eric climbing the first of our two belayed pitches.

Mark climbed up to a set of bolt anchors and belayed me up with Eric trailing about 20 feet below me. I love the reverso!

Mark lead the nest pitch to the end of the technical rock climbing and we all scrambled to the summit! It was a beautiful day to be in the mountains!

Ingalls Peak
Eric and Mark preparing for the descent.

We ended up getting a rope stuck during the first rappel. I had to climb back up and free it before we could continue. We all made it safely to the ground and headed back to camp.

Ingalls Peak
Mt. Stuart and Ingalls Lake.
Ingalls Peak
Our camp over looking the Ingalls Valley.

This is where the trip took a bad turn! We made it back to camp when Mark realized that the lid of his BD pack was not attached! It had his keys in it! We realized that it must have been left on the big ledge where we roped up! We met up at the lake with another party who were on the way down with hopes that they had picked it up and brought it back down. They haven't seen it! ARGH! We sucked it up and started hiking up the scree field to retrieve the keys. Eric ended up soloing back up to the ledge and found the pack! With a sigh of relief we all hiked back down to the lake, shouldered our packs and hike to the truck.

This ended up being a great trip but we were all exhausted when we made it back to the car! Thanks for the good times guys!

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