Welcome! This is the home of a small guidebook to local Seattle area scrambles which I am assembling for my own enjoyment. It is not finished, nor have I verified all the information contained within. Scrambling and climbing are inherently dangerous, and I can take no responsibility for any use of the information presented here. All material here is the copyrighted property of the author(s) and photographer(s), except for some public domain graphics I borrowed.
For fun, you can also read the (in)famous The Disclaimer by Brutus Of Wyde.
Now that I've said that, once again, welcome!
You can go to the guide or keep reading to find out what this is all about.
There are plenty of great guidebooks to the mountains around Seattle. But most of them that I have seen are either written for technical climbing or for hiking. Ira Spring's audience wants to know when a trail is "hikable" (ie. has no snow). Fred Beckey's audience wants to know the routes up Liberty Bell. This guide falls in between.
I am not trying to be comprehensive. I recommend that you just use this guide for hints and further research the routes using Fred Beckey's Cascade Alpine Guide. Other useful guides are Nelson and Potterfield's Selected Climbs In The Cascades and Ira Spring's 100 Hikes series. Dallas Kloke's Winter Climbs is another great reference, but it is hard to find.
Recently there has been more coverage of scrambling. The Mountaineers have a new guidebook out called 75 Scrambles In Washington by Peggy Goldman. Jeff Smoot has also come out with Climbing Washington's Mountains, an excellent book spanning the gap between 75 Scrambles and Selected Climbs.
You can also find more information on many trips by looking at the many trip reports available on the web. Some sites I would suggest are Cascade Climbers, the NWOG, and the WAC.
Good question. Like many climbing terms, there is no exact definition. But a scramble is something in-between a hike and a climb.
Typically anything that requires the use of a rope is not a scramble (though some scrambles could be made safer or more pleasant with the aid of a rope). Typically anything that follows a maintained hiking trail for the entire journey is not a scramble (but some of the trips described in this guide are entirely on-trail). Typically scrambles are one-day outings (but a few of these trips could be more comfortably done as overnighters). Typically scrambles can be done solo (but are more fun with a friend).
The same trip could be a wheelchair-accessible scenic trail by summer and a scramble in the dead of winter (eg. Hurricane Hill). In general, all of these trips, when undertaken during the recommended season, require some elements of mountaineering skill beyond those of the typical backpacker.
That depends on the trip, of course, but the basic skills required are:
Certain basic hiking and backpacking skills are assumed here, and alpine mountaineering skills would usually be a really good idea (in case of emergencies and to give you a better sense of where your real safety limits lie).
Some essential equipment is required on almost every trip into the mountains (eg. maps, boots, ice axe, food, water) but in general I will assume the reader knows this. Sometimes more specialized equipment is useful (eg. snowshoes, crampons), and I will try to mention this when it makes sense to do so. But the choice of which equipment to bring on which trip is an essential skill which cannot be gained from this guide.
Sure. Please do so. You can either comment on trips already in the system or submit new trips. See the instructions.
Now go to the guide.
This site uses HTML4, CSS2, and javascipt. If you don't have the javascript it probably won't work at all. If you have Netscape 6 or IE 5 it should work just fine. Older versions may not display it correctly (especially Netscape 4). The site should also work fine in other standards-compliant browsers -- nothing was written especially for Netscape or IE. In fact, I use Opera on Linux for most of my web access. But I've only done testing with Netscape, IE, and Opera.
Author: Mike Garrison / mikegarrison@alum.mit.edu