"The Leavenworth 5". Includes 5 peaks surrounding the faux-Bavarian mountain town of Leavenworth, Washington. A tough challenge with dramatic peaks mostly in the eastern reaches of the Alpine Lakes Wilderness including 3 peaks in the famous Enchantments. Grab a bratwurst (or veggie bratwurst, is that a thing?) and fill up your glass boot back in the beer gardens of town after the huge days in the mountains you'll experience pursuing this challenge.
Highest peak
Dragontail Peak
8,840 ft / 2,694 m
Most prominent peak
Dragontail Peak
1,760 ft / 536 m prom
Most summited peak
Little Annapurna
31 summits
Most difficult peak
Dragontail Peak
Class 2
Difficulty breakdown
Class 1/2 1 peak
Highlights
Latest summits
"From Terrence’s WTA Report
We are the Mountain Goats, Terrence (14) and Nathan (16). We've been pretty busy hiking and climbing, but not always in Washington, so this is our first trip report in awhile! Today one of us (Terrence) Climbed Cashmere Mountain.
The trail up to Little Eight Mile Lake is flat and easy its about 3 miles total and you gain a little over 1000 feet (it took us about 1 hour going up). From there the quality of the trail goes downhill. You begin to ascend a rocky ridge and begin to see views of Mt Stuart and eight mile lake. Once you hit the top of the ridge you almost instantly see another ridge - that is where your headed.
The trail up to Lake Caroline is very similar to the trail up to the first ridge. By now you are around 5200 feet high and the top of the ridge is 6400". This section of the trail gains about 1200" in 2 miles making it fairly steep. Once your at the top of ridge you get amazing views of Lake Caroline and Windy Pass and your destination, Cashmere Mountain. You descend about 300 feet down to the lake but the trail does not go all the way to the lake instead it goes along the east side of the lake heading north.
T..." — BryHong8 • Aug 4, 2020
"https://hike2hike.com/mcclellan-peak-little-annapurna-climb
Lots of snow and mileage. Tough to do both as a one day climb. Started around 4:30 am and was back at the car around 9:00pm" — Waterboy • Jun 2, 2020
"I’d like to think I made history with this one.
After a huge Italian dinner and beers, we casually decided at the midnight hour, “let’s do Dragontail tomorrow”. The prior 2 big days had started to take their toll, but the beer was talking now. Only thing: I had a catch a flight back to SF the next evening. If we went for Dragontail, we’d have to book it. I was skeptical. But Josh just said, “Let’s do it.”
On the trail to Colchuck Lake at 6:30am. We flew up, under 1 1/2 hrs to the lake. I ran out of steam a bit on Aasgard while Josh surged ahead and flashed the whole pass climb in 40 min.
From here, we made some routefinding mistakes that cost us precious time and eventually led us into walls of smooth boulders in a glacier headwall. Getting out of that mess proved to be our crux; we were also dangerously close to our turnaround time.
Luckily, once above the rock bands it was smooth sailing. Crampons across to the top of the glacier and then a couple class 3/4 moves over a late-season moat to gain the Class 2 south ridge.
Going down we skirted left and avoided all of the mess in the headwall. A climber’s route is well cairned and only moderately tedious talus and r..." — scott • Sep 9, 2018
"We let last night’s bratwursts & beers settle a bit and got a leisurely 8:30am start from the Eightmile Lake Trailhead. Heads up to anyone not in the know, the first few miles are a complete burn zone, including most of the long climb up from Little Eightmile Lake. Recommend at least a few brats to keep you powered up for this slog. Just put your head down, it’s worth it when you regain the forest and emerge over the ridge to Lake Caroline and an entirely different vista. From here on out, it’s a great hike into the alpine meadows below Windy Pass. Look out for a bear climbing high in a tree in this section.
From Windy Pass, you’ll follow the west ridge of Cashmere for a long time until you drop down to a saddle before the final scramble. Routefinding was a bit tricky — we blew by the gully to the first notch, keep a sharp eye out for it. The crux is climbing up a cliffy section out of the first notch. After that the route mellows out but still is interesting as you make your way past the sub-summits to the final summit block.
After downclimbing the scramble and talus hopping, we took the shortcut path down a south ridge and then went x-country with minimal bushwhacking back ..." — scott • Sep 8, 2018
"Camped at Stuart Lake. Hiked to Colchuck Lake and ascended Aasgard Pass, then west southwest to the col near the main high point. From there, scrambled up to the summit. Descended the same way, since the snow going up Pandora's Box was too slushy for us." — mathiasricken • May 26, 2018