My friend, Mark, and I had planned a scrambling trip for the long weekend of August 17-20 in the Blackcap region of the Pasayaten but found out that the road to Hart’s Pass was closed due to a slide. So we opted for Plan B and went to the Sawtooths instead.
The weather forecast was iffy so we decided to drive over to the Buttermilk Creek trailhead past Black Pine campground (FS Road 43 then 500) and make our go/no-go decision there. After a leisurely breakfast at Three Fingered Jack’s in Winthrop the weather was still in our favor. We drove and packed at the trailhead then walked the 9 miles into our base camp at Star Lake, which is at the base of Star Peak (one of our objectives).
We took approximately 4.5 hours to hike in, talking all the way – our pace was not rushed. The trail is shared by horses so it’s dusty and has manure. Ick. I say that even though I am also a horse person. The trail travels gradually up and occasionally back down through bands of different forest types, from pine to Douglas fir to Lodgepole and back to Douglas fir until finally larch up to Fish Creek Pass. From the pass, the lake (approx elevation 7000’ or so) at which we planned to camp is a steep, dusty downhill for 15 minutes. We arrived in camp early enough to get camp chores done, set up which included seam sealing my new nifty little solo tent, then have a nap until dinner time.
Sunset was beautiful, mostly because there was a bank of clouds in that direction. Over tea, we strategized the next days’ plan: if we wake up to rain, we’ll hike out and probably grumble about walking 18 miles through forest just to camp at a lake. If the weather is still in our favor in the morning we’ll attempt the Courtney/Buttermilk/Buttermilk Ridge/Oval scramble as described in Peggy Goldman’s guide to the best 75 scrambles in the state.
Note about Peggy Goldman’s guide: she describes this as a good beginner’s scramble. Mark and I found that to be partially true. I’m a novice scrambler and found the scrambling part very do-able; however, some routefinding and experienced judgment was required, especially from Buttermilk Ridge to Oval Peak due to some iffy terrain travel. More on that later.
The next morning we woke up to favorable weather so after morning oatmeal and coffee we set out at around 0815 back to Fish Creek Pass then north to Courtney. We gained Courtney’s summit by 0930 so decided to go for Buttermilk. While Buttermilk is lower in elevation, it requires more actual scrambling using hands and occasionally requiring some real rock climbing moves. My hands are not exactly hand-model soft – not even close; yet they were quite sensitive from all the rough granite handling. We summitted at 1100. Goldman makes a bigger deal out of gaining Buttermilk’s summit than the other two for the day.
On to Oval Peak, which was after a long-ish, talus traverse across Buttermilk Ridge. Here is where some frustration and crankiness began. We thought it would be easier to traverse the side slope to avoid the ups and down of the ridge. We found that the ups and downs were easier and more efficient. Came across a very cool, ancient larch atop the ridge. Then comes the tricky part of descending Buttermilk Ridge down to the ridge connecting Oval Peak. Mark, who is a real climber with about 30 years experience, looked down Goldman’s recommended route (which she does acknowledge as “questionable”). He said that there’s no way he’d down climb that without a rope, which we didn’t have because we were scrambling, and judged it a Class 5 plus. It was cliffy on all sides. Good hand holds and foot holds but huge, consequential run out if you made a mistake.
We didn’t turn back there since it was still early-ish in the day. Instead we went east on the ridge to find a non-cliffy place to descend to a tarn flat. We found a loose scree slope and descended parallel to avoid knocking rocks down on each other then crossed the tarn flat and ascended up a talus slope to a saddle between Buttermilk Ridge and Oval Peak. This was a rather long detour to avoid the scary, direct descent. Once we achieved the ridge, we stopped for lunch and realized that the detour had put us behind about an hour. Some nearby clouds looked like they were trying to form into thunderheads; we decided to continue onward until there was a real threat yet spend little time on Oval summit.
By 1500 or so we achieved the summit of Oval, which is about 5’ less than 8900’. It was a good thing that the thunderheads never materialized because the route down the talus on the south face was very slow going. We descended approximately 1800’ from the summit back to the tarn flat, walked through the beautiful meadow and larches, around the west side of the tarns (saw fresh bear tracks in the mud of the larger tarn) then followed an abandoned trail for at least a couple miles back to the main trail.
The abandoned trail is in good shape since horses and pack animals don’t use it. However, there is a fair amount of blow down, around which you have to negotiate. The trail is easy to follow if you look for the old blazes in the trees and saw cuts when the blazes occasionally disappear. By the time we reached the main trail and hiked another mile or back up to Fish Creek Pass, we were both fairly pooped. Goldman suggests that this route can be done in 9 hours with a 6500’ elevation gain for the day. Our detour took a fair amount of time and gave us more elevation. We did the whole thing in a little over 10 hours and probably gained closer to 7500’ in elevation. Recommend carrying 2.5L of water minimum; 3L if you don’t mind having a little to spare or a water filter. The only water sources away from camp are the stream from Oval and the tarns.
When we arrived back in camp, Star Peak was in front of us, reminding us that it was our objective for the next day. After dinner we both crashed in our tents, wondering whether we’d have the ambition to climb Star Peak in the morning as the approach from the lake is a very steep scree slope up to the ridge west of the peak. Unfortunately we didn’t get to find out because it started raining at around 2230 and didn’t stop. We breakfasted under a dry conifer tree and packed for the 9 mile hike out, which took about 3 hours. It rained on the entire drive back, through lunch at the Winthrop brew pub, and over the pass until we arrived in Concrete.
Some thoughts – these scrambles can be done one at a time but since they are fairly close to each other it is worth the suffering to do all three of them at once. It also seems possible to hike in one day, camp overnight then climb Star and hike back out if you’re ambitious or only have a weekend. Otherwise, Courtney and Buttermilk are do-able in a regular weekend if you summit and hike out the second day. All three peaks are over 8000’; Oval is one of the Washington’s 100 highest.