Trip Report

Winter Scramble - August Peak, Virgina Peak, Berry Peak & Martin Peak

A not so wintery, winter scramble, but a perfect day to bag 5 peaks with no views! And 4 more Rainier 100's in the books!

Ron Jones

November 10, 2024

Date: Fri, Nov 8, 2024
Activity: Winter Scramble - August Peak, Virgina Peak, Berry Peak & Martin Peak
Route/Place: August Peak, Virgina Peak, Berry Peak & Martin Peak
Activity Type: Scrambling
Trip Result: Successful
Rating:

Road Conditions: Road rough but passable
Route Conditions:
The gravel road to Mowich has some serious pothole sections that are best driven with care, but also sections of just moderate road too.

The trail from the road is actually in great shape all the way to where one cuts off to August Peak. There a few muddy spots as it traverses below Razzleberry and August. Nothing serious.

Some reports emphasize terrible bushwhacking, but our group did not find it that bad. Honestly, just a pretty typical forest scramble, but with only the occasional peek-a-boo views.

Trip Report

I posted the trip as a winter scramble based on season, and after seeing snow-dusted hills the previous week, and how the snow was developing in other parts around Mt Rainier. We all brought gear to be prepared for wintery conditions but it was anything but wintery. A week out from the planned day, the chance of rain went from 30% to 40% to 60% down to 20% and ultimately it was mostly clear. It really was a perfect day for this quintuplet set of peaks.

The drive in was gorgeous.

The trailhead about0.7 mile before Mowich Gate

The "unmaintained" trail sure seems like it gets maintained!!!

Three dry days beforehand helped dry the forest. There was just of a skiff of snow here and there. We were hiking on the trail shortly after 7:30AM.

Our plan was to hike/scramble a clockwise lollipop/figure 8, hitting Martin first and Virginia last. And that's what we did. Mel Courtney suggested looking for the open forest on the hike up and tagging Martin on the way out, and that's what we did. We left the trail about 4,100' and pretty much just went up.

Nearing the Martin summit...

A short break Martin and we descended the east ridge back to the trail. Other reports make this section sound terrible, but we didn't find it that bad. Possibly because we were descending and it was easy to pick our way through. Ascending would probably be annoying, at best.

Back on trail we took it to just NW of August where we went off trail again. Just a short climb up. Number 2! From August we took the ridge south toward Razzleberry. About ½ way there, we took varied micro routes as we contoured below the summit then went up. Number 3! I was able to find devils club, others stayed lower and missed it.

Heading up August...

Heading up Razzleberry...

Another break and we set off along the ridge to Berry Peak, where we had a more significant break and more conversation. We returned via just below the Razzleberry summit and the ridge to Virginia. From Virginia it was a quick and steep descent to the trail and back to the cars.

On the way down we saw this fascinating dead tree still standing.