kidzwonthike and I had originally planned on doing the Chelan Sawtooth Slam as a 3 day backpack staying at Upper Eagle Lake, but the weather turned bitterly cold, so we shifted plans and instead decided to do 2 days of strenuous car to car hikes, since the weather forecast was a bit iffy Saturday. I made the decision to go up Bigelow from Upper Eagle Lake, based on technicality (it was the most difficult/technical of the 3 from what I read) and weather.
The trail was busy Thursday when we arrived at 10:30. Many folks seemed to be going a variety of directions—Crater Lakes, Eagle Lakes, Martin Lakes, Cooney Lake. We saw several bicyclists and hikers out ahead of us. We setup camp to avoid having to do it in the cold, then started up the trail at around 11:00.
The trail was a lot different from when I went up in May to Raven Ridge: much drier and snow free. Crater Creek was a mere trickle compared to the raging creek it was before. The Eagle Lakes Trail itself was relatively gentle, but continued pushing up and to the right. Minus a single small muddy section before the Martin Creek Trail junction, it was bone dry. We occasionally got peekaboo views of the Palouse, the top of Martin Peak, and larches up high along the ridge. Once we got to the Lower Eagle Lake junction, the terrain changed from dry evergreen forests to more open alpine areas and the views expanded to include peekaboo views of Mount Bigelow.
Once we started descending into Upper Eagle Lake, we started walking through a more dense larch forest. The larches were past their prime, but still had a lot of their needles. We ate lunch at the lakeside, refilled our water containers, and eyed the approach to Bigelow. After taking a break we started walking around the lake to start the climb at the base of the talus field.
We walked up to the base of the lowest cliff band and skirted around it: I went right, kidzwonthike went left. He said the way I went was much easier because he had to contend with some minor rock faces, whereas I was using blocky steps. After we both got over the first cliff band we met up somewhere in the middle.
The next cliff band we both went up to the base: kidzwonthike again left and I right. I did some minor class 3 moves and walking up friction slabs, whereas he walked up looser scree and talus. He pushed up the gully below the summit whereas I pushed way too far to the right over some boulders and ended up getting cliffed out at the end of the ridge. I downclimbed to the base of the col, then ascended the ridge up to the base of the summit pyramid.
I opted to go up the gully leading to the summit. I had to do some stiff class 3 moves incorporating mantling, pasting, smearing, and stemming to get out of a mini chimney on to a ledge with loose scree. It was a tight fit, but not too bad. kidzwonthike ran into issues getting up the ledge, but found an alternate way to the left.
I zig zagged up the gully on the edges to limit exposure due to the poor runout, the pushed up the remaining 30’ over the exposed class 3 scree/rock on all fours until I got up to the saddle. Once at the saddle I turned right and went up the ridge (class 1) to the true summit and gawked at the Sawtooths I had climbed this past year, as well at Glacier Peak Wilderness and the North Cascades.
The way down was a bit iffy at times, but there was some solid scree skiing until we hit larger talus and boulders. After that we had to be a bit careful with our rock hopping on talus and larger boulders, since some of them moved. I thought of Janet Weiss from Rocky Horror Picture Show's song, "Touch me, touch me, touch me, touch me... and you will go flying!! Walk on me, watch your step on me, go surfing on me! Scrambler of the talus!"
Once we got down low enough, we basically skated back to the trail which wrapped around the lake, then walked out the way we came.
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