Page Type: | Mountain/Rock |
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Lat/Lon: | 47.77619°N / 121.60691°W |
County: | King |
Activities: | Hiking, Scrambling |
Season: | Spring, Summer, Fall |
Elevation: | 5360 ft / 1634 m |
Persindex is a must grab for peakbaggers attempting the Persis-Index traverse since it has over 440' prominence and presents a 1,000' challenge on it's own just traveling through on the easiest route. Heck, it's a great destination for those wanting just a little more after Persis with much more reward. A very faint trail that starts near the summit tarns on Persis drops South across talus and meadows past five large gendarmes then up a snowy or rocky gully beyond the furthest of the gendarmes to a flat area at 5,200'. It is not the easiest peak to get to and will require some route finding even later in the year. In early season the snowy peaks in their proximity to civilization is a cool sight and especially amazing during a moonlit evening. In autumn blueberry bushes provide a great red blanket over the rocky pillars with Puget Sound and the Olympics as a gorgeous backdrop.
For the Mt. Persis Approach: Take US highway 2 to FS 62 (a.k.a Proctor Creek Road) and follow its gentle grade for 3.3 miles to an obvious but unmarked junction. Take the left fork which is the ever deteriorating FS 6220. High clearance vehicles will find no trouble but otherwise use your best judgement and stop when it gets too rough. Follow this for another mile or so taking yet another left fork onto a spur road at a brown sign with shotgun holes in it. At the last and final junction is a sharp and steep left just before a waterfall. Continue a third a mile to a pullout and keep your eye out for a hole in the forest on the up-hill side. This is the unmarked trail-head for Persis and can be difficult to spot in low light as the road continues a little ways beyond it. The Mt. Persis trail starts very steeply then eases up as it moves through first growth forest then old growth and finally the summit tarn area. For the Proctor Creek Approach: From FS 6220 drive 1.1 miles to the sign with the shotgun holes and stay right. Continue driving until FS 310 on your left, which may not be marked but heads East-SE following Proctor Creek. The road becomes un-drivable quickly as the forest is reclaiming it's lost property. Have fun negotiating all the brush, cliffs and waterfalls on this one. |
Mount Persis (RED): Climb Mt. Persis to the summit tarns and bear South aiming for a large boulder/talus field. Move down and left to access easy meadows where careful inspection will reveal a faint trail. In winter this terrain will be easy without a trail. Stay below the cliffy gendarmes and don't be tempted to climb up easy gullies or ramps too early as you will be cliffed-out. Navigate around a prominent ridge that will lead to a small valley with a creek running through it that will have snow most of the year. This crosses the county line and takes you to the summit plateau where either snow or tarns awaits you depending on the time of year. The summit is to the east and is krumholtz covered class 2/3 with a death fall . Proctor Creek (CYAN): Dodge the all-too-easy Mt. Persis trail-head and start at the end of FS 310 from FS 6220. Follow Proctor Creek's main drainage until an impassable waterfall. Hop over to the right side of the falls and bash brush very steeply up secondary growth forest littered with remnants of old logging operations. Stumps are generally a good sign you found a reasonable route. Nothing about this one is easy though, so pull yourself up by the slide alder/huckleberry/devil's club and tough it out. Eventually you meet up with the Persis route at the bottom of the little valley. I strongly recommend bringing cowhide gloves for this route due to all the thorny veggie belays. Persis Index Traverse (PURPLE): Follow this according to the Persis-Index Traverse from either Persis or Index as a linkup. |