Climbers: Mitch Hungate, Ron Husa, Bruce Kolpack, and Terry Mataya.
Our
original plan was to climb the North Ridge of Kaleetan Peak, whose
approach entails first climbing Mount Roosevelt, then traversing
a notch to the base of Kaleetan's North Ridge
(Glenn Cirlincione and I climbed the non-technical South Ridge
of Kaleetan last year). However, by the time we reached the summit
of Mount Roosevelt, 5835 ft., we decided that we didn't have the
time nor the gumption to continue on to Kaleetan.
The approach to Mount Roosevelt begins at the Alpental Ski Resort. We hiked up the valley past Chair Peak and over the pass to Snow Lake. The photo at the left shows Ron, Terry, and me with Snow Lake (still frozen) in the background. Rising above and behind Snow Lake are the East slopes of Mount Roosevelt.
The normal route follows a trail to Gem Lake which is to the North and higher than Snow Lake. With the exceptionally high snowpack, we instead traversed around the North shore of Snow Lake to the base of Roosevelt. We then made our way up the snow slopes shown in the center of photo.
The
photo at the right shows the four of us (Terry, Bruce, Mitch,
Ron) on the summit of Mount Roosevelt. Behind us is the towering
North Ridge of Kaleetan Peak. We will have to come back some day
and bag that route.