Alpine Scramble - Mount Roosevelt & Kaleetan Peak

Trip Report

We took a through-scramble route from Snow Lake TH to Denny Creek TH, meeting at 7:00 am at the new (and huge!) Franklin Falls Parking Lot because car access to Denny Creek TH is now blocked off. We consolidated into a shuttle vehicle and drove to Snow Lake TH. Both parking lots were nearly empty, which was unsurprising for early morning on a weekday. We started under the clouds, which quickly burned off by the time we got to Snow Lake.

The trail to Snow and Gem Lakes is snow-free and in good condition. A WTA crew was out working near Gem Lake and we saw multiple parties camping around Gem Lake. A boot path from Gem Lake leads up the ridge towards Mount Roosevelt’s true and north summits. It was mostly easy to follow, but had several social trails and small sections requiring a few easy rock scrambling moves. 

We followed the boot path and cairns to climber’s left at 5,400 ft but soon began to suspect it may have been a path to Chair Peak Lake basin rather than Roosevelt, so we backtracked and continued up the ridge until 5,600 ft before veering climber’s left to bypass the north summit. The bench below the ramp to the steep dirt and heather gully up Roosevelt still had snow, which was well-consolidated and did not require traction or an ice ax.

The technical push up Roosevelt included a steep dirt and heather gully, which some trip reports accurately describe as “welcome to class 3 dirt scrambling”. While steeper sections had a bootcase kicked in among some root belays, there were sections with exposure including a few steps across a narrow dirt ledge traverse. Currently, there are some cairns and pink flagging noting the best route – beware of social routes on the descent leading to more risky terrain.

 

After negotiating the steep dirt/heather gully, a few additional moves on more solid rock got us to the summit around 12:30 pm where we were greeted with amazing views of the Alpine Lakes wilderness (including Baker, Glacier, Adams, and Tahoma) and a brass Mountaineers summit register canister. 

After having lunch on top of Roosevelt, we descended the same route down to the snow bench. The next section descending into Chair Peak Lake basin went through a loose and treacherous rock gully, reminiscent of the loose rock in Mount Si’s Black Canyon. We negotiated loose sections traveling one person at a time to manage rockfall hazard. 

Once in the Chair Peak Lake basin, we explored around a small highpoint and made it to the lake to filter water and reapply sunscreen before ascending the snowy slope up to Melakwa Pass. While not highly steep, the snow was relatively firm with poor runout, so we took out ice axes. Depending on group confidence with snow travel and timing, microspikes and poles could also be sufficient in place of ice axes. We ascended near the middle (see photos below) and noted water running under the rocks. From Melakwa Pass, follow the bootpath along the ridge climber’s right and then drop off the ridge on climber’s left when things become rocky.

We approached Kaleetan via the aesthetic White Ledges route, which is often described as reminiscent of Del Campo and provided sporty “choose your own adventure” rock scrambling. We encountered multiple loose holds and a lot of small choss; be sure to check holds before committing.

After ascending White Ledges, we joined up with the standard climber trail to the Kaleetan summit block and reached the summit around 4:30 pm. While the summit block scrambling wasn’t difficult or exposed, the summit has steep drop offs.

On the way back, we considered descending via the East Gully route but decided our group was too large to manage rockfall hazard in a timely manner. Instead, we took the standard climber path back to Melakwa Lake which included another 400 ft of gain to summit Kaleetan South Peak. While mostly a good climber trail, there was one tricky spot descending from Kaleetan South Peak, which could be negotiated via downclimbing with a stemming move and/or using a tree trunk belay. From Melakwa Lake, it was a good trail back with several waterfalls. We all made it back to the Franklin Falls Parking Lot (after getting the shuttle vehicle at Snow Lake TH) at 9:45 pm. Gaia tracked nearly 14 miles with 4,800 ft of elevation gain for the day.

Map