This weekend’s outing for class was an overnight in Devil’s Basin. The goal was to give the students an intro to snow camping… and also to bag Devil’s Peak and Devil’s Thumb!

The hike to Devil’s Lake was pretty straight forward. We followed a logging road to a climber’s trail

After a few hours, we reached the basin! Devil’s Thumb is to the right, and you can kind of see Devil’s Peak to the left!

Here’s a better photo of Devil’s Peak from the gully that leads up to Devil’s Thumb

Anyways, we were sharing this area with another BoeAlps team. The agreement was that the first team to set their camp would get to attempt Devil’s Thumb. We got there second, so we made our way to Devil’s Peak. Luckily, there was a group of climbers from Seattle Mountaineers that were also making an attempt at Devil’s Peak, and they were an hour or so ahead of us, so we followed their steps up!

A sun dog!

A selfie!

After 1500-ft of elevation gain, we reached the base of the peak

Looking back at Glacier Peak

Along the way, some art was made! (A Study in Pinwheels, 6E)

Looking towards Sperry, Vesper, Big Four, and other peaks off of Mountain Loop Highway

One of the cooler things about Devil’s Peak was the double rope free rappel off the summit block!!!

The previous photo was actually one of the Seattle Mountaineers that was ahead of our group. Once they started their rappels, we started our way up. This is how it went:

• Youssef led the climb to the ledge
• Devin followed, and cleaned the route up a bit as Youssef belayed him
• The goal was to have the students use prusiks, to travel up on a fixed line. So, I climbed up half way, and was supposed to clip into one of the anchors; to watch the students move their prusiks past that anchor…
• We realized this wasn’t the best place for me to hang out, so I climbed up to the ledge and just hung out…

Meanwhile…

• Youssef went ahead and set the fixed line to the summit
• Devin belayed three students up to the ledge
• I sent those three students up to the summit using the fixed line that Youssef set (checking to see that they were tying their knots correctly and stuff)
• Devin then belayed Paelina up, who took over his spot
• Devin then bagged the peak, and then returned to the ledge to setup the double rope rappel
• He went down, and then Youssef returned to the ledge to man the rappel station
• The three students at the summit returned and rappelled down, and I proceeded to the summit!

Alex and KJ were at the top, so we had a lil photo shoot.

After a bit, Luke and I traded places. I rappelled down, and stayed there for a fireman’s belay as the rest of the students rappelled. All of this took awhile, and the sun was setting by the time all the students had come off of the peak.

About 2/3’s of us then started the descent back to camp, as four instructors stayed behind to clean up the rappel…

Glacier Peak getting cozy with some clouds

By the time we got back to camp, it was dark. Surprisingly the other team had just started their rappels off of Devil’ thumb. We watched them move as we ate dinner, and they didn’t return to camp until 11:30pm.

…which was when we were stepping into our tents for the night.