Trip Report

We camped Friday night at the trailhead, Marble Mountain Sno-Park. (plenty of parking, no water, pit toilets). We departed camp at 2:00 AM. Following the Swift Creek/Worm Flows trail via headlamps presented no challenges. Shortly after emerging from the forest Brian noticed an old injury was flaring up. Rather than push it he decided to return to camp. David and I continued on. At predawn we reached the weather station equipment at around 5,500 ft. We continued to ascend and at 6,300 ft we noticed many boot tracks traversing west toward the Monitor Ridge Trail. Instead of taking that course we choose to continue slightly to the right and up. We followed a small scree ridge. At 7,100 ft. we chose to traverse west toward Monitor Ridge Trail. At this point we encountered snow. It was early in the morning and the snow was crusty. We used traction. I wore crampons and David used micro spikes. It wasn’t technically difficult but it was nice to have a good purchase on the snow for our boots. We crossed the Monitor Ridge Trail and continued to the true high point of the rim, aka the summit. We arrived at 9:05 AM. Since we had it to ourselves, and the predicted thunder and lightening was a no show, we stayed for an hour, enjoyed a meal and took in the views. Then we geared up for the descent. We were able to glissade to about the weather station. From there we walked back to camp, arriving at 2:00 PM, just fifteen minutes after the first sounds thunder and a few drops of rain. We reunited with Brian and headed home.