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Alpine Scramble - Hoodoo Peak

Scramble of Hoodoo peak.

Mark Scheffer Mark Scheffer
September 27, 2021
  • Road suitable for all vehicles

  • road had a bit of washboard on the first half of but was in good shape after that.  There is room for 10-12 cars at the trailhead.  

This was planned for a 2 day backpack to Libby lake and scramble Hoodoo on Sunday. We met at the trailhead at 11am since it was not a long first day. On the hike in there were a few blow downs but nothing of real significance. 

At about 6 miles we reached the abandoned cabin. There was still (surprisingly) water in the small creek that flows below the cabin 200-300' back on the trail.  We decided to camp at by the cabin to make for a shorter summit day.  There is VERY limited camping spots here. We found just two and fortunately had just two tents.  A larger group would need to continue to Libby lake for camping.  

We did  day hike to Libby lake after setting up tents. Both at the cabin and at the lake the larches were at their peak  and very impressive Larch forests.  This time of year the lake in itself would be a very pleasant trip.  

Sunday we we started out at 8am.  There is a climbers trail next to the cabin that leads up to a vernal pond (I had to look that up when I read it in a trip guide ;-).  Traversing around the muddy remains of the pond we picked up a faint trail on the other side (not really needed at this point honestly) and continued up to the basin below Hoodoo. 

Having seen lots of GPX tracks going up to the false summit but straight down to avoid the ridge, I started to the left of the slabby rock at the foot of the basis and angled more for the saddle the first 200-300' and then aimed directly at the summit block staying on the dark lichen covered rocks/boulders. These tended to be pretty solid and did not move around a lot and we reached the summit without ever getting on the ridge itself.  

The summit has pretty spectacular 360 views and easily was worth the boulder hopping to get to.  On the route down we mostly traced our ascent track.  

Camp to Summit was about 1hr 30 min and return was about 50 minutes.  After packing up we hiked out to the cars, arriving there about 2pm.  

The bugs were minimal the entire trip, but that may be due to the late season.  Note there is no water this time of year from the cars until you hit Libby creek.