Left North Seattle at 1:22 PM. Stopped in Lake Stevens/Lundeen Park for gas and was at the trailhead and hiking by 3:03 PM. In a truck, but thought Sunrise Mine Road/4065 was easy to navigate. Lost service a hour from the trailhead/in Granite Falls and didn’t regain reception until momentarily from the peak.

Made quick work of the upper and reached the summit in under 2 hours. Section before/leading up to Headlee Pass is a burner. Route finding/following trail was pretty easy and the final section of low angle granite was super grippy and fun to navigate/scramble. I’m glad it didn’t start raining until halfway down (which made the talus/scree mid-section a bit slippery).

Not a ton of people on the trail but not empty either. Made it back to the trailhead just after 6:30 PM, and barely avoided having to pull out a headlamp in the dense tree cover of the first/final 0.50/0.75 mile.

Road: I did drive my low clearance vehicle right up to the giant pothole.  I probably could have gotten over it, but didn't want to take a chance, so I turned around and parked at the pull- out.  Walking to the TH, I did see a guy get over the pothole just fine in a low clearance car.  The walk to the TH was short, so really not worth trying to get closer.

Trail: A little muddy and full of roots, but easy enough to follow.  I did lose the trail a few times, but looked around and the hoodoos pointed the way, and the people ahead of me.  Once you get to the final ascent, you really do just go straight up, picking what looks easiest to climb up, but if you have doubts the hoodoos help.  Probably one of the most amazing summits.  Totally lucked out on perfect weather!  Gorgeous views of Glacier, Baker and Rainier.  Quite a few people up top for a Monday, especially given how early I left the house!  So many pika were out!  Sadly, most of the blueberries were gone, but I did get a few.  Definitely not an easy hike, but not impossible.

We camped at the lake on the 9/1. At about 6:30pm we thought we head someone cry out “someone help me”. We headed up towards Vesper peak, and didn’t see anyone in distress, but did see some vomit. We reported it to search and rescue, but wanted to see if anyone heard anything similar.

Arrived at the trailhead around 9:00am. Trailhead is full but parking is available further down the road. The big stream crossing is very easy right now--easy to step across the few logs. Once you get up into the talus below the pass, keep an eye out for a quick 180 turn after you've gone below the pass itself. There is a cairn and a white arrow to mark the turn. The pass has a lot of loose stone and gravel so the steeper sections take some care.

Above the pass, the trail is in good conditions, though there are some side trails that can lead you astray. One you can see Vesper you are pretty much maintaining a straight line towards the peak. Trail is totally snow-free and mostly dry. We summited around 1:00pm, started down around 1:15pm. Returned to the trailhead around 4:30pm.

Some general advice: don't take this hike lightly. The elevation gain is no different than Mailbox or Dickerman. This is a much harder hike. Lower down, lots of deep roots and rocks make the going slower. Up in the valley, you spend significant time on talus, which is slow-going and exhausting. The upper reaches require comfort scrambling on granite slabs. Leave yourself much more margin for error. Assume it will take longer, and I would not go unless the weather report is very favorable. Getting caught in the upper reaches in wet weather would be a bad scenario.

* If anyone finds a pair of Julbo Glacier Glasses on the upper section of Sperry Peak, could you please contact me at 425-426-7530? Thanks!

I did Vesper Peak, Wolf Peak, and Sperry Peak in a day. The road to Sunrise Mine Trailhead is in good condition. The trail up to Lake Elan is decently steep near the top, it's definitely a good workout to get up there.

I first did Vesper Peak, which was an easy class 2 scramble, and although there is a boot path to the top, you can pretty much just take any way up you want. Coming down from Vesper I angled over toward Wolf Peak until I reached the saddle between the two peaks. Then I scrambled up to near the top (easy class 2). In order to summit Wolf Peak, the last very short section is extremely exposed. Probably a 500-1000+ foot drop on either side of the short, narrow ledge to the summit. Navigating across the ledge is easy, but a fall is certainly fatal. I took off my pack and put my helmet on (not that it would do any good if I fell) and quickly summited without taking any time to look at the view. You can always just skip summiting Wolf Peak and go directly to Sperry Peak instead.

After Wolf Peak, head toward the saddle between Wolf and Sperry, and a boot path will take you up to a large rock field around 300 feet under the summit. When you are standing at the rock field, look for a smooth, angled rock ramp off to climbers left. Go to the base of the ramp, and turn right, then you will see a faint path leading up through the trees with cairns leading the way. There are a lot of small paths through the trees, so just find one that works best for you. I had to do one short, very steep class 3 section, so if you ever end up somewhere harder than that, turn around and find another way. After I summitted, I came back down and on the saddle between Wolf and Sperry there is an easy way down to Lake Elan.

Total mileage was around 9-10 miles and around 5500 feet gain.