IBEXtrax.com - Cascade Mountains of Washington State Alpine Lakes Wilderness

Surprise Mountain

13 May 1973

The directions to the Surprise Creek Trail in the 101 Hikes book simply explained to turn right at the end of the Tunnel Bridge. Even though I had passed over the railroad tunnel bridge every weekend during the previous winter in route to my Ski Patrol job at Yodelin Ski Area, I did not recall seeing the turn off.

The high snow banks of winter had dwindled away for the season by the time Chris and I crossed over the bridge in mid May of seventy three. The big sign was clearly visible and it announced the western portal of the largest railroad tunnel around these parts. At the west end of the bridge Chris and I turned right and followed the dirt road over the railroad tracks to the Y in the road. After a short discussion that centered on which fork to take, we went to the right. The next Y in the road offered a choice between fording Surprise Creek and climbing up a steep rocky logging spur. I decided not to subject the low slung Cortina to the high waters of Surprise Creek. With some regrets pointed the old gal up the logging spur. All was going well until we found the track impassable due to bowling ball sized boulders. Chris jumped out of the abused Cortina to explore further up the spur road. I eased the little Ford back down the hill and parked in the open area to the east of the Surprise Creek ford. Chris returned a few minutes later and reported no evidence of the trail.

We decided not to take any smokes, so we chewed gum as we laced up our boots. We shouldered our packs and went down stream to cross Surprise Creek on the railroad tracks. Back on the road, we followed the Bonneville power lines and eventually found the trail sign. The first part of the trail passed through short brushy section. But soon the brush thinned and we entered the open timber. The trail climbed moderately and crossed a few muddy places on planked walks. Some of the wooden structures were new but others were ancient remnants of the thirties era CCC work. After a half mile, snow patches appeared. The trail was usually clear and easy to follow. At one mile we crossed the creek on a fallen log. The log had a rickety wire handrail. From the crossing we climbed over a bluff. The snow became thicker and more abundant. I finally had to stop and put on my gaiters.

While we had been hiking up the Surprise Creek trail, the sinking sun had turned the snow on the ridge to the east pink. At two and a half miles the trail left the creek and started up the ridge. The sun had set, it was getting dark, and the snow had completely hidden the trail. When ever we were about to give up on finding the trail, we would find an old blaze scar on a tree and then continue to go higher. I was tired and constantly looked for a site to pitch the tent. We played the game of out guess the trail engineer, and looked for slashes that marked the trail. Many times we lost the trail, but we kept climbing. After what seemed like hours, the slope eased off. Chris and I stopped at the first halfway level spot. We leveled out a platform for the tent in the hard compacted snow and then set up Chris' Crestline tent. The search for water ended when Chris found a trickle and the bottom of a tree well. Chris climbed into his sleeping bag to thaw out his frozen feet. I cooked supper, sitting in the entrance of the tent, shielding the Sevea white gas stove with a poncho. My feet were completely numb by the time we had finished eating. I crawled in to my thin bag, using all the extra clothing that I had for insulation. I zipped my coat around my feet and used my pack beneath me. The moon was up and full. I looked out of the air vent in the back of the tent. The moonshine was as bright as day, reflecting off the snow. I fell asleep to the gurgling of an invisible stream beneath the snow.

In the morning, I got up and struggled into my frozen boots. I crawled out of the tent and found that the sky was blue and cloudless. Chris emerged from the tent as I returned with the water. He cooked breakfast while I stuffed sleeping bags and rolled blue foam. After eating we broke camp. I was packed before Chris as usual, so I climbed up the hill without my pack. I went up far enough to see that the trees were thinning out ahead, so I knew that the lake was near. I slid back down to the camp site. We shouldered our packs and left behind only a platform in the snow were the tent had been.

A short distance above my exploration point, we found another slash on a tree. The slope leveled off at the outlet of the lake. Surprise; surprise we had made it to Surprise Lake. We headed around the east side of the lake and soon came to the junction with the Crest Trail. To get fresh water we had to climb down a ten foot snow bank to fill the Polly bottles. After crossing a small creek on a snow bridge, we followed the trail that was now marked by white ceramic insulators that hung from the trees along the lake shore. We surmised that the trail markers once held a power or phone line.

We left the trail and hiked out on a point of land that stuck out into the frozen lake. There was a nice camp spot on the point and a good view of Surprise Mountain. We planned to climb Surprise Mountain, located at the head of the valley, later in the day. We retraced our steps back to the trail that lead away from the lake, up a ridge and east of Surprise Lake. The ceramic insulators guided the way. We spotted a few new, round Crest Trail markers that were different that the diamond shaped markers I had seen before. The snow offered good footing most of the time. However, only once in awhile I would plunge through to my knee. Chris had no sunglasses so we kept in the shade as much as possible. At one point we had to cross a wide slide area that funneled snow avalanches down from the black crags of Thunder Mountain. Beyond the slide area we crossed a creek and continued to the Glacier Lake Shelter.

The three sided shelter was visible only from the roof up due to the heavy snow pack. We slid down into the shelter and cooked soup for lunch. Our position was five point five miles in and at five thousand feet. To the southwest was the one thousand foot northeast face of Surprise Mountain. We left the shelter with rucksacks and ice axes and headed for the north side of the mountain. Our path was so steep in places that we thrust our ice axes in at eye level. Six hundred vertical feet from the shelter the trees thinned.

Back in the glaring sunlight, Chris mentioned that his ice axe looked yellow instead of its true orange color. It sounded to me like the early stages of snow blindness. I gave Chris my glasses and shaded my eyes with a bandanna. We then traversed southwest with our avalanche cords trailing behind. At the bottom of a narrowing snow chute we turned left and climbed up to a small clump of trees. It made sense that the snow was hard because as we were on the shaded north side of the mountain. We rested in the small group of trees and passed the sunglasses back and forth to admire the view. We were occasionally distracted by balls of snow that came bounding down the snow chute that we planned to go up. Our attention was shifted to the rolling balls and we watched until we figured out the pattern. A small blob of snow would fall off the left side, high up in the chute were the sun was on the snow. It would trigger the bigger balls and it all came down the left side of the chute. The right side of the chute was untouched.

The obvious plan was cross the avalanche track and climb up the right side. I would go first and scoot across the chute while Chris would act as the lookout. I started out from our protected position in the trees and found the snow to be tediously hard. I had to kick two or three times to make a suitable foothold. Chris yelled something and my heart jumped. I looked up and saw that the balls were moving above me. I held my ground, because I wasn't in the track yet. I stayed in my kicked out toe holds, and watched to see which way to dodge. When I saw that the slide stopped above me, a wave of relief passed over me. I continued to cross. The snow was soft in the track, so I moved quickly to the right side. Chris quickly followed my footsteps then we both continued up the right side of the chute. When the slope eased off at the top, we broke out into the bright sunshine and the broad open slopes of the southeast side of Surprise Mountain. We traversed left, through stunted trees, toward the summit. It was a short distance to the rounded summit. However, the softening snow began to give way more and more often as the day progressed. My heart pounded from the exertion and the excitement as we neared the top.

Finally we reached the metal surveyors post that marked the high point. I was struck by the tremendous view to the South. Shimmering in the heavy cover of spring snow was the Daniel massif. To the left was the andesitic plug of Cathedral Rock. Closer and to the right was unmistakably Terrace Mountain with it slopes that fell in steps down into the Deception Creek drainage. From the summit pedestal at 6330 feet, we gazed down over 1500 feet to the snow covered Glacier Lake and Surprise Lake beyond. Further North amidst the choppy white waves of countless peaks stood the dominant volcanic cone of Glacier Peak. The crystal pure air of the cool spring day had unfolded to us minute details miles away.

We drank the last of our water and then started down going North toward Surprise Gap. On this second half of our summit traverse we enjoyed a few good slides above the gap. Even though the snow was in the shade below the gap, it was too soft to slide on. We plunged back down to the shelter, sinking to our knees almost every step. Upon arriving at the shelter, we had dinner and went to bed.

The next day we hiked out nonstop, except to shamelessly brag to some hikers just below Surprise Lake. We also stopped to eat honey and peanut butter on Pilot bread at the log crossing Surprise Creek.

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