Alex crossing Early WInters Creek.
Why Silver Star? Well, it's one of the high 100. And, it's on the North Cascades Highway, which just got opened last weekend. And, it seemed like a good objective for this time of year: a snow slog without technical aspects. Jim Nelson put it in his first volume of "Selected Climbs;" that's a recommendation.
Aaron was going to come, but he got sidelined with an injured heel. So Alex came by the homestead at the obligatory 4:00 (more or less) start time, and we headed off up north. Traffic through Everett is amazingly easy at 5:00 AM Sunday morning.
The weather was supposed to be 'partly cloudy' but there was a solid high overcast as we drove north, at about the altitude of the summit of Mt. Pilchuck (about 4000 feet or so.) But we figured as we headed east, the weather would improve, as it's supposed to.
The drive was very quiet, once we got onto Hwy 20, we saw barely a car. We didn't see much scenery, though; I couldn't spot Mt. Triumph on the drive in, and Colonial, Pyramid and the other massifs were pretty thoroughly swathed with clouds.
Unlike my last attempt on this route, we found the pulloff with no problem. Nelson says it's got a sign pointing to "Silver Star Peak" but that hasn't been true for years. But I was able to identify the wine spires, and the pullout is basically at the base of Burgundy Spire.
We hit the trail about 8:15 or so. Crossing Early WInters Creek was a breeze, there were several logs to chose from. Following Nelson's directions to find the trail was a bit more problematic: we found Burgundy creek without much problem, but the trail was covered in snow. So, we just slogged up the creek valley, which was full enough with snow to make the going pretty easy. In a month or two, when the slide alder is all uncovered, this will be a bit like Whitehorse, I suspect. Then, the existance of a climber's trail will be a necessity.
On and on we slogged up the hill, contouring over to the right towards the Burgundy coulour. It's a big mountain. As we continued up, the snowshoes turned out to be a better idea, then a necessity. It is tough to climb up a hill over about 20 degrees in snowshoes, no matter how agressive the built-in crampons are, and sidehilling is a pain.
Eventually, we arrived at the col, around noon. Interestingly, the col was almost bare of snow, due I guess to the wind. There were a couple of bivy sites built up here, but I don't think I'd want to spend the night in this wind tunnel.
One interesting thing about this whole structure is that the "wine spires" are more like walls: they look sharp from the road, but as you get up to the col, what you see is a broad granite face.
From here you drop down rather steeply and then contour well around to the right. Up until now I'd been fantasizing that we might be the first ones up here this year, but down below we saw at least eight skiiers. And, when we contoured all the way around to the chute you ascend up to the Silver Star col, there were two more skiiers descending. And, when we got up to the col, it became obvious that there'd already been plenty of people up here, from the footsteps heading up to the summit.
The skiiers didn't take our route, the ski route goes up Silver Star Creek,. And, it was good that they were there, because it was so overcast, we couldn't tell which side was higher. So, we took off our packs and scrambled up to the summit, arriving around 2:00 where we enjoyed the spectacular views of the interior of the cloud we were in, took a couple of photos, searched in vain for a summit log, and headed down.
From the col you could see a lot more, though the overcast made for very flat light and poor photographs. I was very pleased at being able to identify Kangaroo Ridge, where I've never been, from photos in the Red book. And, of course, Liberty Bell, the Early Winters Spires, and so on.
We got to the car around six. Six hours up, four hours down. Given the conditions and the snow slogging, not particularly bad time, but not world beating.
On the way back, we stopped at Buffalo Run for those good old buffalo and elk burgers, then headed home.
Would I do it again? Well, not soon. Would I recommend it? I don't know. A lot of it depends, I guess, on why you climb. On a clear day, of course, the views are spectacular. The climb is fairly steep, and in the absence of snow, the ascent would go easier, but the descent would be a knee-beater. It seems like the real reason for this climb is to get access to the magnificent granite of the wine spires. Which, when you get up there, are less spires than walls. But even for a novice rock climber like me, they're pretty tempting. If you headed up there and spent two or three days hanging out and climbing the spires, and took a side trip to the summit of Silver Star, that'd be worth it. But, of course, your mileage may vary.