West Needle Mountain – 13,060

RT Length: 19.1 miles

Elevation Gain: 4853’

I started from the Andrews Lake trailhead at 6am. On a positive note, the bathrooms were clean this time! No toilet paper, but the seats were clean (always bring your own TP). The trail starts by skirting the south side of the lake.

I then took Trail 623/Crater Lake Trail all the way to Crater Lake. This is an easy, class 1 trail that is easy to follow with no major junctions. I hiked the 5.5 miles to Crater Lake on this trail.

Once at Crater Lake there’s a side trail that goes off to the left. This trail stops at 11750’ at a small pond. I took the trail to the pond.

The trail stops at 11750’ and now it’s time to bushwhack. I lost 400’ of elevation as I headed southwest towards a gully I couldn’t yet see. Here’s an overview of where I was headed.

Aiming southwest I skirted the hillside until I came to the end of the trees.

I now had a clear view of my path to the saddle between South Twilight Peak and PT 12932. I kept descending towards the creekbed and then ascended up 1260’ towards the saddle.

The route was obvious but not marked. I went to the left on the way up, to the right on the way down, and both were similar. The left side had larger boulders and the right side had more tundra, but both were essentially snow free and clear.

Here are some pictures of the route to the saddle

Now at the saddle I had to descend a bit to traverse towards West Needle Mountain. I descended about 25 feet to the south and found an access gully on the left that would get me around the rock outcroppings.

I ascended the class 2 gully

From the top of the gully I could see my intended route for West Needle Mountain. I would initially stay high, just under the rock outcroppings, then pick up a game trail for a while and follow it towards the base of the ridge in the distance, aiming towards just below the two large outcroppings and up a gully.

Here are some pictures of the route to the base of the gully I used.

From here it’s a great time to look at the route before you. This is choose your own adventure, and there seem to be a lot of different possibilities for gaining the ridge. All class 3. This is the route I chose, first going up the loose and rocky gully then straight up the class 3 face.

Once on the ridge it was still choose your own adventure. I stuck mainly to the ridge itself in class 3 terrain. There was one ‘sketchy’ move where I had to slide down a 10-15 foot boulder/rock slab and shimmy down. It wasn’t difficult, but there was exposure. The entire ridge for me was ‘figure it out as you go’. I just kept following it up, never cliffed out, and kept heading southwest.

Of course there was a false summit, but luckily the terrain got easier from there.

I summited West Needle Mountain at 11:40am

West Needle Mountain:

This was an out and back hike for me, so I turned around and headed towards the false summit

Then back down the ridge. Downclimbing seemed much easier than upclimbing on this route. The route was easier to ‘find’ on the way down.

And then back towards the gully. It’s easy to know when to start the descent towards the gully as the terrain gets noticeably easier and you have a line of sight as to where you need to descend.

From the base of the gully this is my route back up to the saddle. I’d be ascending about 250’ to get there.

Then it was back down the gully and up towards the saddle

From the saddle I could see my route back towards Crater Lake. I’d descend back down 1260’, then up 400’.

First to head back down the drainage

Then to head back up towards the pond at 11750’. To help me navigate I first aimed for this large boulder in the distance, then headed north through the trees.

Once at the pond at 11750’ I found the Crater Lake Trail and took it the 5.5 miles back to Andrews Lake.

I made it back to my truck at 5:30pm, making this a 19.1 mile hike with 4853’ of elevation gain in 11 hours, 30 minutes. At least according to CalTopo. Strava gave me different numbers.

On to the next trailhead!