Intermediate Alpine Climb - Bonanza Peak/Mary Green Glacier

Bonanza Peak is the highest non-volcanic mountain in Washington State. It is in a beautiful, remote area of the Glacier Peak Wilderness near the southern end of the North Cascades National Park. Its remoteness leads to complicated logistics to reach Holden Village where the trail begins. We climbed Bonanza over three days; much of the first and third days were taken up by travel.

Air quality was a big concern. When our party of four left Fields Point on the Lady of the Lake, the air was quite poor. Fortunately it was a somewhat better in Lucerne and better yet in Holden Village. As we hiked up the trail to Holden Pass, where we camped, the smoke went away entirely, though it was visible down in the valley below.

We left camp a little before 5 a.m. Having read many trip reports and by interpolating several GPS tracks we found the navigation straightforward.

Less than a half-hour later we started up the noted waterfall slabs. We didn't run into any problems and mostly stayed on dry rock.

By 6 a.m. we reached the glacier and roped up. The snow conditions were good, though it took some effort to kick steps on the way up and it was a bit sloppy later on our way down. We crossed the small moat on a conveniently located block of snow. The block was smaller on the descent and by now it is surely gone.

Above the glacier the scramble was largely 3rd class with a few bits of 4th class/low-5th class on mostly solid rock. There is quite a bit of exposure.

We reached the summit around 9:15 a.m. We had great views under a cloudless sky but there was some haze from various fires. After signing the register we headed down.

On the climb up we spotted many rappel stations scattered around. On the upper mountain we combined downclimbing with two rappels. After descending the glacier we made a third rappel of the upper section of the waterfall slabs. To avoid a final rappel under running water we spent some time piecing together a downclimb route.

Our total climbing time was about 11 hours camp-to-camp. This was slower than we had hoped and we decided to forgo additional peaks on this trip. We packed up and moved to a nice camp site at Holden Lake. In the morning we hiked 5 easy miles back to Holden Village in time to eat breakfast and catch the bus, starting the long trip home.

Bonanza Peak was a great climb. We had good weather, we climbed above the smoke, and we were the only party on the mountain.

Gear: 2 x 40 m ropes (used one for glacier travel and both for rappels), 2 pickets (didn't use)