Commonwealth Basin Traverse
July 2017Almost exactly a year ago I met a man on the summit of Snoqualmie that talked about this traverse and I haven't been able to stop thinking about it ever since. It begins with Guye Peak and makes its way around the rim of Commonwealth Basin crossing the summits of Snoqualmie, Lundin, Red and finally Kendall in that order. 5 summits with some awesome scrambling (and a bit of not so awesome, but more on that later...) along the way.
Guye Peak
We started from the PCT parking lot just off exit 52 of I-90. We took the southeast route up Guye (what I call it, have also heard it referred to as "East Route" and "South Ridge"). To access you turn off the PCT onto the old Commonwealth Basin trail. After crossing the creek on the wire covered bridge you turn left and must hop across another creek and then turn right. The trail back there is not the easiest to follow and you turn off it after a few hundred yards anyway to go straight up the steep slope towards Guye. You must traverse to the left above a rock band in quite a brushy zone — definitely one of the lowlights of the traverse (although not overly terrible).
You have to continue moving up and to the left until you find a rather narrow ledge overlooking the pass. If you follow it around you end up on some easier class 3/4 that allows you to make vertical progress. There are a few grassy flat spots you pass enroute to the summit and the route finding becomes simpler but with continued fun scrambling (with some bushes along the way). After topping out on Guye you have to traverse over the middle summit and then get to the north summit. I've heard there is a way around the west side of the north summit but we stuck to what I knew — the drop down and climb back up the gully on the east side.
Guye to Snoqualmie
From the top of Guye we followed the boot path down to the Guye/Cave Ridge saddle and continued straight (instead of left to Alpental or right back to Commonwealth). The trail is not super obvious and it branches off at points. We ended up on a trail up to Cave Ridge and had to backtrack. I think it is your 2nd left after departing the saddle. This trail kind of disappears in a low wet area and we had to do some bushwhacking to get to the trail up Snoqualmie.
Snoqualmie to Lundin
From the top of Snoqualmie our route followed the downward sloping ledge to the left. We crossed the snow once it leveled out a bit (and used our ice axes to be safe) and traversed the bumps on the northeast side of Snoqualmie all the way to the base of the West Ridge of Lundin.
We put harnesses on before starting up Lundin's west ridge. First time for all of us on this route and I heard it could be spicy so we figured we'd ready ourselves to rope up if need be. The scrambling along the ridge is on pretty solid rock and AWESOME with a bit of a drop off on either side. We moved to the north side of the ridge below what I believe to be the crux of Lundin. We belayed off a small tree up a dihedral with a nice crack that took a .5 (or .75) quite nicely. Above the dihedral there is a mess of slings around a large block. I used my own gear to wrap the block and belay Andrew and Rachel up from above. I'm sure there is an easier way to pass this section (to the left looked like more "scrambly" terrain but we had a rope and the exposure was near certain death so we played it safe).
Lundin was my only new summit of the day and quite an awesome one it is!
Lundin to Red
We did a 30m rap off the east ridge and followed the trail down around and over a couple of sub peaks until we got closer to Red.
I've read there are some scramble routes up the west side of Red but as there was shaded snow in one of the gullies we decided to stick to the bootpath to the summit.
Red to Kendall — The Crux
After the summit of Red is where the traverse takes a turn for the worse. I had done Red to Kendall before and did not enjoy it. After reading that you can do "minor scrambling" from the Crest Trail (Katwalk) to the summit of Red via the west ridge I wanted to try it again. We started on the ridge but progressively moved lower because of how steep the ridge stays on to worse and worse terrain — class 4+ with loose rock EVERYWHERE. After dropping a couple hundred feet below the worst of it (this took a LONG time) we gained the ridge again on a solid section of dirt/heather and then traversed one more unpleasant (but not nearly as bad) section of rock to more dirt, heather and trees. After several hundred yards along this ridge you reach a sheer cliff 150-200 ft deep (read: not rappable with 2 30m ropes as we had). From here we had to descend hundreds of feet on dirt/heather in the trees until we reached a down-scrambable section. The lowest section gets pretty steep so we decided to leave some tat and a quick link to rap the final 30m (rope length was perfect).
I had reason to believe you could regain the ridge on the other side of the cliff and traverse it to the Crest Trail, but I decided to stick to the route I took last time which takes you on talus/greenery to the base of a slab. Not tons of holds on the slab but in comparison to the red heap of trash much more enjoyable. The top of this slab pops you out on a large boulder field and traversing right under a cliff deposits you a couple 3rd class moves below the Kendall Katwalk trail.
Kendall
With the previous section taking much more than I'd hoped (time, concentration and energy) we decided to stick to the trail for the final section to the top of Kendall. I still haven't done the north ridge scramble which I will have to return for one of these days.
5/5 final summit happiness.
Stats
~15 miles, ~7,000 ft gain, ~15 hours. We were never pushing very hard as we had plenty of daylight but we were making pretty good time (~2hrs per summit) up until the Red chossfest and ensuing shenanigans.
All in all, an awesome traverse with a BIG asterisk: the section between Red and the Katwalk.