7/9/2022 Keyes Peak was a long time coming for me. I had been drawn to it since my first of many trips to Blanca Lake years ago. It also helped that it was the highest point of the Monte Cristo Range, and views down to Blanca and the surrounding area were sure to be spectacular. There is no way around the fact that Keyes is a long day. The stats are big, and travel on the ridge above Virgin Lake is often slow. I’ve heard of parties completely underestimating this peak and hav

The weather for the Fourth of July weekend wasn’t looking too great for western Washington. The saying “summer doesn’t start until July 5th" had never been truer. With that said, it looked like there was an option to squeeze in a short overnight before the weather rolled in and Townsend Mountain fit the bill. Townsend (not to be confused with the much more popular peak of the same name in the Olympics) is a relatively obscure peak in the Wild Sky Wilderness in the vicinity of

9/7/2021 With another great September day on our hands, Fern, Isabel and I headed out in search of Gunn Peak (or the infinity tarn if we were being honest with our priorities) in the Wild Sky Wilderness. Gunn is one of the steep, pointy summits you can see on highway 2 driving into Sultan and is actually the high point of the wilderness, so I was very excited about this one. The climbers path trailhead is very non-descript. We located a narrow gravel spur off the main road n