Trip Report
Winter Scramble Review - Tiger Mountain
A great Winter Scramble tune-up, with clear/cold weather (to verify our emergency clothing/gear), and a lengthy/confusing network of trails (made even more so by recent logging) to hone our conditioning/navigation skills. Lead photo by Nathan GH.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Nov 12, 2022
- Winter Scramble - West Tiger Mountain Railroad Grade
- West Tiger Mountain Railroad Grade
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Only a small amount of snow above ~2300’, and this small amount was easily negotiated without micro-spikes. All the trail bridges were in good shape (albeit the usual slippery/slimy).
We used a different route from last year’s trip, with our day’s itinerary visiting labeled intersections in numeric order (starting at 1 and ending at 26, using intentionally non-optimal maps and no GPS):
Besides new folks choosing the turns at each intersection, each of them led through cross country terrain for 300’ vertical to reach our clothing evaluation spot at label 5. We bundled up and spent 2 very stationary hours discussing our respective gear/clothing (as well as experiencing their warmth keeping properties ;):
(photo by Ron Jones)
The recent logging gave us some good practice ferreting out the normally faint trail between labels 7 and 8:
(photo by Nathan GH)
After tagging the summit of West Tiger 3 we put on some serious miles (with a rapidly setting sun adding to the drama):
As we ascended the Cable Line with headlamps (between labels 18 and 20) we missed the turn at 20, giving us an extra 200’ of gain. The trail heading east at 20 is easily seen from the cable trough (as we saw when traveling between 10 and 11), but when using the easier boot paths just west/adjacent to the trough it is easily missed.
Twelve hours into our day saw us descending the Section Line trail…
(By Ron Jones)
… and after after a brief stop at label 1 to check the fit/function of snowshoes/crampons, we were soon back at the cars. A great tune-up at ~15 miles/~5000’ of elevation gain on a ~13 hour day, made even more so by a short drive home (for most of us that is, kudos to our folks that came from far away ;). Photos from a number of us on the trip can be seen here (thanks to Nathan GH).