Pride of the Pass

The Gold Creek Rim is a popular route from the Rampart Lakes over to the Kendall Katwalk. Although most of the route is on trail, it stays pretty high for the entire route and visits some of the most scenic terrain in the Snoqualmie Pass area. On a day that Daniel and I were looking for a short drive and low commitment route, it fit the bill.

We left a car at the PCT North lot and shuttled up to the Rampart Ridge Backdoor Trailhead. In just 30 minutes, we were at Lake Lillian and entering the quintessential subalpine meadows of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness.

The Rampart Backdoor is steep, but it gets you into some lovely terrain quite quickly!

We continued on trails past Alta Mountain towards East Alta. We found an impressive trail cut all the way to East Alta, with evidence of boulders rearranged even! It was a pleasant surprise.

From East Alta to the PCT is most “off-trail” section of the route. It drops down a steep slope, and then the “trail” reappears through the heather, traversing lower over to the PCT. However, Daniel and I spotted a direct ridge option and decided to give it a shot!

There was some class 4 scrambling, some loose traversing, but also some nice grassy ridge line. The low route to the right is certainly easier, but this was a fun variation.

We picked up the PCT about 3:15 into the day, but the hard part was only beginning. The PCT from Four Brothers to Snoqualmie Pass is probably one of the least runnable sections of the entire PCT.

We had a brief stare down with some goats around Chikamin Peak, but otherwise moved efficiently. As much as I dislike the terrain underfoot through this section, at least the views are nice.

We got some water at Ridge Lake, since there had been no running water since the Rampart Lakes. After that, it was just a long rocky descent from the Kendall Katwalk.

We both felt that this route was great for a day when we didn’t want to go too far and have an epic. The views are never amazing, but they’re consistently good, especially for Snoqualmie Pass!

Notes:

• The route measured 20 miles and 5.6k ft gain. It took us about 6.5 hours moving pretty efficiently. About half that time was getting to the PCT, and the other half was on the PCT!
• This is a good route for people who are fit but less experienced with off-trail travel.
• I could see the descent off the north side of East Alta having steep snow earlier in the season.