Kaleetan Peak 2/7/09

The original plan was to take a ferry and climb the Brothers on a two day ski/climb. The weather man put an end to that calling for a crappy Sunday, so we decided to do a one day climb in the Snoqualmie area - Kaleetan peak. After 2 days of numerous email threads creating 3 different parties, Ryan, Lucas, and I finally were on our way at the upper alpental lot at 6:00 in the morning. We were glad that we decided against Chair Peak as it looked like everyone was heading that way for a cluster &^%k.

We pretty much did the chair peak circumnavigation in the clockwise direction with the excursion to Kaleetan, however we deviated from the normal route by taking the S ridge route instead of the shorter E face. From Melakwa lake we traversed W past some cliff bands then ascended the south face which looked like a beautiful ski. I led up thanks to my ski crampons while the others took their own lines. The going wasn't easy on skis up on the jagged ridge so we dropped about 400 feet on the west side on a really nice run. Not knowing what to expect we threw the skis on our backs and hiked from there. Awhile later we arrived at the summit - on a gorgeous sunny day.

This turned out to be one of the nicest climbs in the area for me - a little more remote, a little more difficult, and gorgeous weather and views for the day. We ended up skiing the upper gully which I just made a mess of --- also, the snow pack is really getting thin. The S face just below the summit gully was wonderful and the E face, which was most parties chosen ascent route, was steep with some nice soft snow. Again, I made a mess of this. So, after being completely humbled by the two steep sections we skinned up to Melakwa pass for a rest. We finished the circumnavigation via chair lake, snow lake, and source lake, finally meeting up with the other groups at the Issaquah Brewhouse. ~5600' up and the same down. 'Twas a gorgeous climb.

Sun coming up in the morning.

Laying the track up to Bryant col

Heading up the slope to the S ridge.

Kaleetan from the S ridge.

Booting it up the summit gully on Kaleetan.

Me making a turn at the top of the summit gully.

Lucas descending from Melakwa pass to Chair lake.