Slide Mountain South Summit WA, Slide Mountain Failed WA

Slide Mountain South Summit - 2068M

68M Prominence

50.16995, -124.29306

Jan 18-19, 2025

It is slightly painful to write this report as I did not end up successfully completing the true goal. I usually would not have written a report on a failed objective, but the South summit of Slide is somewhat of a peak of its own, boasting at least 65M of prominence from the true summit. Therefore this mission still stood out as quite an epic adventure and experience on it's own.

At 7:45 Tyler and I parked the truck after a two hour drive from town. The gravel road conditions were quite ok and completely snow free. We hopped out to a "trailhead" that is quite familiar by now. Last time I was out here was late last summer on a solo trip up Mount Baldy. We started by crossing the river, which was far less raging than at any other time of year, it proved a little tricky as all the rocks were glazed in a thin layer of ice. Once across the river we set out on the boring old road, which was honestly quite a bit more enjoyable in the winter as there were no bugs and it was far less overgrown. After about two hours the road walking ended, and the snow level was around 6 inches. We made a dive into the forest, battling through the side of an old clearcut from years ago, until we reached the beautiful old growth forest. The old growth forest is a real treat to walk through. At around 1000 meters I put my crampons on, not because there was snow, but because the ground was quite frozen, and it just made it easier. We trekked up to around 1400 meters, where the snow level had increased substantially, and the old growth forest started to open up into alpine terrain. Once we were leaving the trees, alpine views slowly started to open up. We looked up onto the start of what I would call the ridge to see some small critters scurrying about. We took our time traversing the perfect snow, up and over the cell reception point from our last outing on Slide. Eventually we got a look at Cup lake down below and the large South summit above. We stopped to compare the conditions to the conditions from last time. The snow pack was absolutely bomber and there were no signs of instability. The perfect crust kept us moving at a quick pace. It allowed each step to only sink in a few inches. It was the ultimate hiking conditions to not slip all over the place, but also not exert a stupid amount of energy to move our limbs. We never even bothered to throw on our snowshoes. We traversed the risky avalanche zone that looms over the south east bowl of the south summit. This time is was a much less stressful endeavor, as we had hours of daylight and known conditions. Following this point we traversed an old avalanche path from weeks ago. After the debris field we continued West, and once approaching camp we threw on crampons to ascend one small slope to arrive at camp. Camp was situated at the base of a snow slope we has scouted out a few hours earlier. This snow slope was the one we selected to be our best chance up the South face of the South summit. It was approximately where we had traveled on our last outing. Things looked a little different this time though. We had hours to kill once we got to camp. As usual we gave ourselves plenty of time for unexpected events. Immediately we set up camp behind a few old growth trees for shelter. We whipped out the avi shovels and dug out a foot of snow to level out the ground. A quite optimal camp spot, but it still left a massive amount of work for day two. It might have been possible to continue on on day one and ascend the technical terrain to the South summit, but with heavy overnight packs we opted not to. We kicked back, refueled, planned out our path for the morning as best we could, and watched the incredible sun set. The night was unpleasant as expected, with minimal sleeping happening and some early morning shivers. By 5:51 AM we had both scarfed down a few sugary snacks to get us up and going. We were immediately presented with the steep slope that we had been looking at yesterday afternoon, so it was crampons on and ice tools in hand, we proceeded to carefully front point our way up over 150 meters of elevation up the south face. We actively tried to scout out the best and least steep route as we went. This was solely done by the pictures we had taken the day before, good positional awareness and a headlamp. The downloaded summer route on my Gaia app was not that useful anymore. The terrain looked quite different, and we tended to stay further West. This segment took about 75 minutes until the grade levelled out and we were able to hike up to the summit without the use of tools. From Camp to South summit it took us 1 hour and 40 minutes. We were happy with progress so far, and happy to be standing on a summit that I believe had not been stood on in the winter to date. However, over to the North West, the true summit stood in the early morning glow. It looked daunting and unachievable at first glance, but we had come this far, and we were not going home without a fight. We took a few minutes to evaluate a potential route as best as we could. This was difficult as many of the featured of the tower were not visible from this angle. After a few minutes of break, we gathered ourselves and started to make our way down to the connecting ridge, we downclimbed onto the ridge via a steeper but short lived section. The first part of the ridge was flatter, and we flew down this part. Ahead of us lay tons of exposed rock plagued terrain. There was far less snow fill in than we were hoping for and expecting. Instead of making our way over top of the ridge like we had done on our successful ascent, we opted to hang a bit lower and traverse the consolidated snow with our crampons. This was an immense amount of work, and we side stepped for hours above exposed 500 meter snow and rock chutes. There was no where to stop and catch a breath until we finally arrived at a boulder that housed a small ledge beneath it. We looked ahead and evaluated progress and route again, I was still quite daunted by what was ahead. The South side of the North summit was a complete battlefield of small snow filled in sections wedged between steep frozen rock. We kept at it, staying calm and collected, but after many hours we called it in. It was too steep, exposed and not worth the risk. Time was also starting to add up, and we had to be back at the car by the end of the day. We fell short almost exactly 100 meters under the summit. Frustrated, but still quite proud of our progress, we turned back, and followed our tracks back along the connecting ridge and back up and over the South summit. The descent of the South summit was much more pleasant on the way back in the daylight. Tyler's toes were causing him an immense amount of pain from kicking steps for a large part of the morning, so I lead the downclimb back to the tent. Back at the security of the tent we had a break, and packed up. From this point on there was no technical terrain back to the truck, so we took our time and enjoyed the slog back. Once back on the overgrown road and out of the snow, Tyler's purple toes started to act up terribly. It slowed us down to a crawl and he even bushwhacked backwards in an effort to relieve the pain. We got back to the truck at 4:20 and cracked open a few blessed chilly root beers that I forgot I had left in the truck. We drove out in the dark and three hours later we were back in civilization.