Dumbell Mountain - Entiat Range, WA
August 17 - August 18, 2013 |
2 Dumbells Finish all Three Dumbells
Several years ago, Carl and I wandered through heavy fog in Phelps basin, aiming ever upwards…towards something. In hind-sight, a little more preparation would have been useful. As it was, we had a pretty good idea where the true summit of Dumbell was located, we just didn’t pay close enough attention to the little nuances of the various route descriptions.. things like “climb up the long talus field” should have been a clue as we instead climbed up step heather and snow toward the darkest spots in the fog above. We figured the highest of the shadows should be the summit. Much crap-class climbing and two pointy peaks later the fog finally lifted enough to see two climbers standing on the summit of Dumbell…far enough away to be discouraging. Out of time and energy, we vowed to return.
Saturday we cruised up to the very crowded trailhead and parked the little Yaris on the edge of the road. I secretly hoped someone would back into it and knock it down the cliff. It really is time to buy another high-clearance vehicle. The drive from Spokane was quite long so when we hit the trail at 1pm, we knew the climb wouldn’t have time to summit until Sunday morning. The trail was a virtual freeway with many couples and a few very large church and school groups heading to Spider Meadows. We took our first break at the edge of the meadow and wondered how so many people would find room to put up a tent. Upper Phelps Basin was also pretty crowded but we managed to find two relatively flat…ish spots. I hit the sack very early - zonked out till 5am.
Armed with better beta and clear sky, we made excellent time and before I knew it we were dropping trekking poles and readying to cross a short (25’) finger of hard snow to gain access to the first short rock band. The rock was maybe class 3 with all positive holds. Above the rock band we climbed a little more scree to the base of the route. We had a choice of scrambling through a moat to an obvious fault in the face that led nearly to the top of the ridge or just go straight up. We decided to go up on semi-clean. It went solid 4th class with exposure but was pretty positive. The scramble was short and easy and got us to a dirty ledge leading to the main notch. From the notch the summit was a bit more scrambling but not too far away.
The view from the top was great! I was especially impressed with the perspective of Bonanza. We also checked out the route to Greenwood but decided we wanted to get home no later than 10 so passed. We enjoyed to warm rock and windless summit for about half an hour then started back down. We decided to try out the “dirty” gully on the way down. From the notch, we didn’t go down to the ledges but instead, stayed north of the crest and followed an easy path that took us to another notch directly above the gully. I didn’t find the gully to be any more dirty than the rest of the route. The exposed was less and the holds quite solid and plentiful all the way down to the moat. I’d definitely choose it over the way we went up though that wasn’t bad either.
We didn’t see anyone all morning and when we got back to camp, Phelps Basin was deserted. There were still a half dozen or so tents in Spider Meadows though.
I really enjoy this area and the more I explore it, the more I see to bring me back. Looking forward to going back again.
I doinked my knee up pretty badly coming down from the summit so getting back to camp took nearly as long as the ascent (about 5 hours total) from Phelps Basin. The hike from Phelps Basin back to the TH took about 36 hours and covered roughly 371 miles. The drive back to Spokane was even longer. I think that rough gravel road is actually on a huge conveyor belt. |
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