Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

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K.Wagner
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Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by K.Wagner » July 8th, 2018, 4:51 pm

I know that a lot of the Portland members are perhaps not very familiar with the Dark Divide quasi wilderness area. I say quasi, because in many ways, it is managed as though it is wilderness, with the except that dirt bikes are allowed on the trails. This is a large, rugged area with a system of very defined ridges. To place it, think: east of Mt St Helens, west of Mt Adams, north of the Lewis River, south of the Cowlitz River.

In my ongoing effort to tag all 231 summits within Skamania County, there were still 3 peaks left to put my boots on in the Dark Divide, one of them being Peak 5580. This is the next peak south of the massive McCoy Peak.

Here is a map link
In this picture, 5580 is the long peak to the right of rugged McCoy. This is probably the only view angle where it looks so gentle.
17-McCoy - Adams-S.jpg
From most other angles, it looks more like this, and of course, this is the side the trail is on:
5580-FR29-S.jpg
So my adventure buddy, Don, jumped at the chance to risk life & limb on another adventure with me, even though he knew from previous adventures, what my adventures often turn into! We drove up Friday evening after I got off work, so that we could get an early, cool start, because we knew we had a lot of vertical feet ahead of us.

The road is block by 4 major washouts to get to the trail head, which added about 3 1/2 miles of boring road to cover. The first washout is at Camp Creek. Don supplied 2 mountain bikes that made those miles of road almost painless. There were good trails around the first 2,
06-Sunrise Crk Damage-S.jpg
and a rough trail for the 3rd one. Knowing that the turnoff was near and that there was another unknown washout head, we stashed the bikes. Good thing because there was no possibility of getting the bikes over the Jumbo Creek washout. We barely got us over it! Little did we know that this spot would be the riskiest point of the entire trip.
45-Don on Jumbo Crk traverse-S.jpg
We finally got onto the Rough Trail, which has to be one of the steepest trails in the Gifford Pinchot NF, climbing 2,000 feet in 2 miles. The trail is actually in very good condition, it just climbs & climbs. You will notice that Don is not in this picture, he's likely a couple hundred yards up the trail somewhere..........
12-Climbing-S.jpg
At one point, Don's GPS showed that we were climbing at 31% grade, which is a leisurely 1,600 feet per mile!

We finally got a break in the grade at the first view point, about 1,850 feet up. Had wonderful view of the nearby McCoy Peak, and across the valley, Juniper & Jumbo Peaks
18-McCoy Pk-S.jpg
14-Juniper Peak-S.jpg
15-Jumbo Pk-S.jpg
After a short stroll on up to the junction with the #259 Langille Ridge trail, it was time to go off trail, and hope that our friends, the elk, had done their usual good job of setting trail. After a bit of thrashing, we found their trail running right up the spine of the ridge. That really made travel easy, until we were confronted with cliffs. I had seen this band on the satellite images, and new that the way around was to go north a bit and use a strip of trees.
20-Rock Band-S.jpg
We found a game trail going up, and were very thankful for all the Cascade Azalea that gave us hand holds to keep us upright.
21-Trail through Azalea-S.jpg
Then it was up the spine of the ridge, where it was really starting to feel alpine and the views just got better & better.
23-Sofibida, Jumbo, Adams-S.jpg
But (there always has to be a “But” in a real adventure), we could see the summit cliffs up ahead. How would we get passed this obstacle?
26-Getting close-S.jpg
Well, our solution was to go to the right and follow the impressive cliffs until we found a break.
29-Cliffs-S.jpg
It turned out that we had to go 1/2 mile and a drop over 100 feet, until we found a brush filled chute. We clawed our way up that, again thankful for the Azaleas & small cedars that gave something to grab. A picture of Don descending is below.

From there, it was comparatively easy going. We found another game trail that got us up on the ridge, then it was almost a stroll through an old burn to the summit.
33-Snags-S.jpg
Oh my, the views! Here, looking somewhat SW, left to right: Craggy Peak, Shark Rock, Kirk Rock.
36-Craggy, Shark, Kirk rocks-S.jpg
To be continued.....
Last edited by K.Wagner on July 8th, 2018, 5:05 pm, edited 8 times in total.
Kelly
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K.Wagner
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by K.Wagner » July 8th, 2018, 4:54 pm

Here looking east, left to right: Sofibida (immediately in front of Don), Jumbo Peak, Mt Adams, and on the far right is Peak 5317.
35-E summit-S.jpg
After a lunch break, and securing a little summit register, it was time to head down. Time after time, the GPS (sometimes comparing both of them), led us back down through the cliffs and breaks & chutes. Here is Don, sliding gracefully down through some brush. And to think that we call this fun!:
42-Don descending-S.jpg
Here is the last view of the trip, looking roughly NE at Goat Rocks, still with quite a bit of snow:
44-Don, Goat Rocks-S.jpg
Final numbers for the trip, about 13 miles and 4,030 of elevation gain, and 2 whooped puppies!

Don, feel free to chime in and tell everyone how much fun we had!! :roll:

PS: Those 4 washouts are scheduled to be repaired this summer & fall. But (there's that word again!) there is more damage, another couple miles up. Then looking at the satellite images, I spotted 3 more washouts & a slide up past that one.
Kelly
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Chip Down
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by Chip Down » July 8th, 2018, 7:40 pm

K.Wagner wrote:
July 8th, 2018, 4:54 pm
Don, feel free to chime in and tell everyone how much fun we had!! :roll:
How appropriate! I was just thinking most of that didn't look particularly fun.
BTW, why did you post this in my MSH blog? :lol:

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K.Wagner
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by K.Wagner » July 8th, 2018, 8:08 pm

I just we needed a little variety ;)
Kelly
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Peder
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by Peder » July 8th, 2018, 9:09 pm

Great adventure! We thought of you Friday and almost cancelled our Mt Minnie ascent. The idea was that the Don and Kelly reaction to us bagging Peak 4900 would be worth it! If ambitious, we could also have tagged Peak 5015...
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K.Wagner
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by K.Wagner » July 9th, 2018, 9:05 am

I have to admit, that corner of the county seems to be the hardest for me to get into.
6 summits of the 10 I have left to do are in that corner.
Last edited by K.Wagner on July 9th, 2018, 11:23 am, edited 1 time in total.
Kelly
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jeffstatt
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by jeffstatt » July 9th, 2018, 11:14 am

K.Wagner wrote:
July 8th, 2018, 4:51 pm
You will notice that Don is not in this picture, he's likely a couple hundred yards up the trail somewhere..........

It's been a while since I've hiked with Don, but I definitely had a lot of those same types of photos.

Thanks for sharing this great DD trip report. I'll get there eventually!...

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K.Wagner
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by K.Wagner » July 9th, 2018, 6:49 pm

I just found a picture from 2 years ago, taken from Dark Mtn. This was another adventure with Jamie & Don. I cropped it down to about 1/3 of the original.

We should have gone left under those cliffs, not right!
5580-from-Dark_Mtn.jpg
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Don Nelsen
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Re: Another adventure in the Dark Divide, Peak 5580

Post by Don Nelsen » July 10th, 2018, 4:23 pm

K.Wagner wrote:
July 8th, 2018, 4:54 pm

Don, feel free to chime in and tell everyone how much fun we had!! :roll:...

...we should have gone left under those cliffs, not right!
Kelly, Absolutely! A great time! Of course, now one or both of us has to return to see if going to the left under those cliffs is the better way. Tag, you're it. :D

A few of my pics:

"Rough Trail" is a good name for that thing but only a little of it looked like this:
Image

"Steep Trail" would be more like it: Here is a nice section looking out at a switchback. It really is as steep as it looks and feels steeper when you are one climbing it:
Image

The views were worth every minute of it: Goat Rocks:
Image

Kelly enjoying a short break:
Image

The cliffs, in places, really are as overhanging as in this photo:
Image

If this were a little easier to get to, I'm sure rock climbers would be all over this thing!
Image

Image

Here's another view of the crux of the mission: Traversing this cliff is really sketchy and the 40 foot drop to rocks is not too inviting!
Image

Looking forward to the next time.

dn
"Everything works in the planning stage" - Kelly

"If you don't do it this year, you will be one year older when you do" - Warren Miller

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