The west face of Guye Peak; the south rib is basically along the right skyline.
Dropped the kid off at school (he's been bumped up a level from the kindergarten class to the "lower elementary" class, and yes, we're pretty proud) and headed up to Snoqualmie Pass. I nearly turned around at Exit 38 when the drizzles started, but then they eased off, so I continued up.
Parked on the Alpental Road, near the Sahali Ski Club, as CAG recommends, and hiked up their road. The trail is there, easy to follow once you find it (on the right of where the road ends; it more or less follows the ridge up.)
Initially, I headed too far to the left, and found myself up on the south section of the West Face, and all the lines I thought I could follow kept petering out into fifth-class stuff that I didn't feel comfortable doing unprotected and alone. I got far enough over, in fact, that I was able to identify the "improbably traverse" and man, it sure is improbable! So, I backed down and found the rib.
Beckey says the rib is a popular practice route, and I can see why. The rib is in fact a fun climb, at least the bottom half or so. It's easy fourth class, with lots of alternatives, good practice routefinding and not at all scary. The rock is okay, but of course you do have to watch for the odd handhold that isn't. Again, it's good practice for that, too.
This hawk was a lot closer when I first spotted him, but by the time I drug out my camera, he'd soared way up.
About halfway up, the rib disconnects from the main mountain, and terminates, and your options are to either scramble up vertical sheer walls of the upper west face, or curve around to the right, and get onto the south side of the mountain. I had some trouble finding the best way to get there; one nice line, with footholds that looked like they'd been jackhammered out of the rock, was just one step too far with no handholds, and I had to back off. There was a wired stopper jammed into a crack there; clearly I wasn't the first to try that move. I left the stopper, rather than claiming it as booty, figuring that someone else might need it right where it was.
So I descended down a chossy gully, and found an easy spot to scramble up around to the right. From here, it was pretty easy going, but much less interesting, all the way to the south summit. Much of the time you're on dirt and heather, following a rudimentary path up the hillside. It's not difficult, but not nearly as fun as the lower half. I took the bits of rock climbing I could, but it wasn't nearly as fun as the lower half.
Rampart Ridge. Whenever I see this formation up there, it always strikes me as a classic cragging wall, but it's never discussed much.
Got to the south summit, and did the traverse across to the north, which would have been pretty damned difficult without the illustration from CAG. From there, you just follow the beaten dirt trail back down to the Alpental parking lot, then back down the road to the car.
I'd hoped to have time to snoop around and find the entrance to the cave, there on cave ridge. It's supposed to be the deepest cave in the state. I was unable to find it, and gave up and just headed down.
A fun day. If I was to come up here again, I'd probably bring a rope, and rappel down from the end of the rib, and climb it again, rather than continuing on to the summit.