On June 8th, The Way Too High Alpine Society mounted an assult on Mt. Phelps, 5535 feet. Mt. Phelps is one of the most prominent Cascade peaks that can be seen from Seattle.
The climbers were Bruce "Butch" Kolpack, Glenn "Vincent Vega" Cirlincione, and Sandy "Honey Bunny" Cirlincione. Editor's note: knowledge of the movie Pulp Fiction is required to get the inside jokes contained in this report.
We drove up the North Fork Snoqualmie River Road to a point 24 miles from North Bend where we took a short spur towards the Blackhawk mine. The road was washed out about 1/2 mile from the mine.
Near the mine, we found what appeared to be the "trail". We bushwacked (Class B1) about 800 ft. up a clearcut, then climbed another 400 ft. up the East Ridge. Traversing south, we found a 1000 ft. snow couloir that brought us to the base of the summit massif. A southwesterly traverse brought us to a short rock gully leading to the South Ridge which was ascended to the summit.
During the climb, Butch (pronounced Bootch) encountered Esmeralda Villa Lobos who asked, "Tell me Butch, what does it feel like to climb a mountain?". Butch replied "You wanna know what it feels like? I'll tell you what it feels like. I don't feel the least bit bad about it." Vincent Vega pondered the significance of a foot massage vs. "the holyest of holys" as Honey Bunny pondered "oral pleasure".
We were the only party on this seldom climbed mountain. The summit register showed the last party to register was in July 1995. The ascent took about 5-6 hours with a fair amount of time taken up route finding (Beckey time is 4 hours). The views were excellent as we spent about 1/2 hour on the summit.