Special to The SunBreak by John Hieger
Guye Peak is that first rocky spire that shoots up to the left of I-90 right as you reach the summit at Snoqualmie. It’s easy to get to, but that’s where the easy ends.
The entrance is literally twenty feet from Snow Lake’s trailhead in the Alpental Ski Area parking lot. Guye Peak, unlike Snow Lake, is far from a popular stroll. I didn’t see a single person the entire day, which can be good for solitude snobs, but sometimes it’s nice to know that if you roll an ankle somebody will find you before the cougars do.
The first mile of trail is the type of vertical rock scramble that turns tepid hikers into lifetime haters. If you have a Marlboro habit, this trail isn’t for you. While it’s a relatively short distance roundtrip, the 2,000-foot elevation gain means you’re climbing vertically almost the entire time. I was in hell for the first 45 minutes, I won’t lie.
Like any good summit hike, the pain-gain cliché applies. All the good views require some gut-wrenching, vertical misery; Guye Peak is no different.
After a brutal first mile of climbing, a ridge comes into focus that offers climbers the option to head left to Snoqualmie Mountain (bigger, longer) or the other direction towards Guye Peak. Since I didn’t hit the trailhead until one in the afternoon, I opted for the “easier” route to Guye Peak.
No sooner had I taken the right, when the trail became a wicked scramble over boulders in a generally uphill direction. At this point the Alpental peaks across the valley come into view, but on shaky rocks your best bet is to focus on footing and deal with the views when you take a break–which is often, when you’re hiking during the hottest part of the day in the hottest month on the calendar.
After you pass a small pond that doubles as a snow pile the eleven other months of the year, the trail regains its upward push before the last several hundred yards becomes a mild, rock-climbing scramble as the temperature drops and the air begins to swirl above the tree line.
I read that several people have died on this hike, as the cliffs are steep and slippery when the weather isn’t so agreeable. I wondered where all the dying had taken place, but upon reaching the summit it became clear how limited good footing was.
Side “trails” stretching towards the two other summits were literally a few inches of loose rock that give way to a several-thousand-foot drop. If you screw up on this peak, you’re going to drop on the roof of one of those ski chalets far below. After trying for several minutes to muster the stupidity to manage one of these trails, my gutlessness and better sense got a hold of me, and I took in the solitude on the first summit, all of five feet lower than the other summits I had almost killed myself to scramble to.
Snoqualmie Pass summits on a clear, summer’s day look out on the type of picturesque landscape that would’ve made Emerson think Walden Pond was a muddy culvert. It’s so pretty, the views so far reaching, the peaks hidden from I-90 so impressive, it’s impossible not to want to tackle the next mountain over just to see what opens up from that perspective.
Cascade mountain climbing becomes an addiction like any other. You keep chasing those highs. You bag one summit and take in the views and before long you notice the next mountain over and ask yourself, “Now what’s the name of that sucker right there? I wonder how long of a climb that is?”
Each peak offers a different view, opens up a different angle on a section of back country that you hadn’t noticed before, and tickles that addict’s drive to see what you’ve been missing. It’s a habit that will keep you alive as long as you watch the footing.
Best sunburn blog post of all time