NW end of Prospectors Ridge

I parked on Road 57 and walked up road 5740. The logging road was clear enough to mountain bike until the first sharp right turn, afterwards the road was almost too choked with brush to even hike. Soon I noticed some old-growth forest on the ridge to the left, I cut over and found the woods much more pleasant. Around 3,100' I met the road again and followed it to its end in a small gully full of logging debris, I then traversed NNW to the old growth forest on another ridge. The ridge was very steep and I found my ice axe very useful for self-belay in the dirt at times, but there were no technical difficulties. This led me to the far NW finger of Prospectors Ridge at 3,800'. I followed the ridge dodging a couple gendarmes until 4,000', at this point I faced 200 vertical feet of dense, young, snowy hemlock and decided I had found a good turn around point.

As I had lunch before heading back the clouds allowed me a couple glimpses of a short finger of the ridge that runs NE at 4,200', it could be an awesome vantage point but I couldn't tell if it would be a technical climb to reach it.

  • Date:
    2005/02/13
    Round-trip distance:
    6 miles
    Elevation gain:
    1,990 feet
    Trip type:
    scramble
    USGS quad:
    Mount Phelps
    In:
    North Fork Snoqualmie Drainage
    Car-to-car:
    5 hours 28 minutes
    • 14 minutes driving there from Lower Queen Anne to intersection of I-90 and I-405
    • 1 hour 22 minutes driving there from intersection of I-90 and I-405 to trailhead
    • 2 hours 36 minutes ascending from trailhead to where I turned around
    • 2 hours 20 minutes descending from where I turned around to trailhead
  • Prospectors Ridge route map
    Prospectors Ridge route map
  • The ridge NE of Sunday Lake taken from 3,000' on Prospect
    The ridge NE of Sunday Lake taken from 3,000' on Prospect

  • Copyright © 2024 Gabriel Deal.