I left home at 6:20am to meet the others 7am. 5 of us piled into one car. The driver was a bit late, but he drives fast. Reached the road-size pullout around 9am.
See the arrow key on my GPS app, and that's where we started.
The red track of Rock Mountain is downloaded, not my track, but almost the same except the beginning.
After we scrambled to the road, followed it for 1 zigzag, and then trail for a little bit. We could see the trail from time to time for maybe 10 minutes. The rest (below tree line, ~4500') is very steep, up and up. Some of us put on crampons, because it was snow on either rock or frozen ground. I (2nd time) used a pair of corded aluminum crampon, but couldn't fit my shoes properly, or got knocked sideways. Redid my crampon twice, still not the best fit. Well, ice-axe helps. With not much view and such a steep climb, redoing crampons gave me time to catch breath. I was lagging behind MH and LL.
Once reached the ridge line, the slope eased a great deal.
Snow gets fluffy and deep. So switched to snowshoes.
There's one section (circled on the GPS map) is a traverse on a very steep slope.
Avalanche danger.
After that, some more trees and more elevation gain, but nothing bad, until a large open area.
LL sat down under a tree for his lunch, already afternoon.
Here's MH heading to the false summit in the clouds.
It's rather steep, but the deep snow provded the option to zigzag.
From my GPS map, I could see that the slope just a little north of it is less steep, but without any visibility, I followed the track to the false summit.
It turns out the entire top ridge is corniced on the right (east) side.
Dropped down on the the flat-ish ridge towards the summit that I couldn't see.
Half way there, MH already came back.
I reached the summit at 2pm, quite exhausted and cold.
As the clouds were lifting, I waited for LL to come up, and we walked back together, at least now I could see the ridge.
MH was waiting at the false summit.
Here's her photo of DR and his teenage sister (her 2nd snowshoe hike) on their way to the false summit.
They are tough. This is not a normal snowshoe hike.
We regrouped here. I put on my rain jacket (on top of a fleece vest and a wind breaker) for the wind (not too bad).
This photo was taken ~2:45pm.
I glissade down the false summit, and LL followed.
MH had her crampons on, so she walked.
I put on snowshoes below. Going down on powery snow on snowshoes is easy. Making good time.
Finally we had some view.
The peak in the middle of the left photo is the false summit.
Here's the ridge above the highway. Yes, go straight down.
I switched from snowshoes to spikes.
LL and I glissaded a few short sections. Very bumpy ride. Snow was too deep, and not powdery.
Then it's a steep decent over rock/snow/plants.
Eventually we found the trail, and then road.
Reached the car at 6:50pm.
I was feeling very cold, because my back, pants, socks were all wet due to the glissade. Put on my puffy, and a wool sweater, hiding in the car. Should have brought a book. It wasn't until ~7pm when the other 3 showed up. It rained on our drive back to Seattle.
Got dropped off at the P&R. Took the lightrail back. Forgot to tap my Orca card on my way out: so paying extra $1 for no reason. Got home a little after 9:30pm.
Not sure about the stat of today's hike. The elevation difference between the road and summit is about 4000'. I think I walked ~8 miles for the hike, because my phone only logged ~20k steps (other than walking to and from the lightrail station). My leg muscles were sore for 3 days afterward.
