South Twilight Peak – 13,105, Twilight Peak – 13,162, North Twilight Peak – 13,084

RT Length (from Andrews Lake): 17.11

Elevation Gain (From Andrews Lake): 4573’

I arrived at the Andrews Lake trailhead and noticed a rather robust coyote sitting along the shoreline, just staring.  He wasn’t bothering anyone, so I let him be.

About 20 minutes later, I heard a woman screaming from not too far away.  The coyote was attacking her Golden Retriever (which was luckily leashed).  I ran over there with my trekking pole to help her out.  The coyote had been stalking them for a bit and wanted the dog as food.  After scaring the coyote away, we chatted for a while, and she told me this wasn’t the first time her and her dog had been stalked by a coyote.  I was surprised the coyote would be so bold as to go after such a big dog.  We quickly became friends, exchanged contact information, and we were both on our way.

I started my hike at the Andrews Lake Trailhead, which is at the west end of the lake.  The trailhead has vault toilets (but women be mindful:  the door lock moves left and right but doesn’t actually lock).  There are about 15 parking spaces here, with an overflow lot on the way in to accommodate more vehicles.

My goal for day 1 was to make it to Crater Lake, since I had a late start, not starting until about noon.  I followed the class 1 trail as it skirted the lake, then switchbacked up to some ponds at 11200’

I then continued following the trail as it wound south to crater lake, rolling up and down in elevation as it went.  Pictures of this trail are difficult to give reference points to, as most of it was below treeline and the views were always the same.  However, there are no junctions or side trails, so just stay on the main trail and it will take you to Crater Lake.  There are several small creek crossings that are easily manageable, and the trails were a bit muddy.

It was 5.5 miles and 1530’ of elevation gain from Andrews Lake to Crater Lake.  It took me 2.5 hours to get there with a full pack.  There are some good campsites up the slope in the trees to the north of the lake (your right when you arrive).  I set up my tent and made it an early night. 

The next morning I was up and on the trail at 7am.  To the left (east) of the lake there’s a trail that will take you through the willows and up to another small pond.

I skirted the small pond on a trail to the left

And then the trail ended, but I could see my route to the southwest.   Here is where I was aiming:

To do this, I went down a grassy gully, then headed southwest, losing about 400’ of elevation total as I rounded the mountain, avoiding the rocky gully below.

I made it through the trees, and the terrain became rocky.  I was headed towards a saddle to the left of South Twilight Peak. 

This is choose your own adventure.  I chose to stay low, heading for the small stream below, then ascend by following the tundra, going to the right of the rock pile (it’s obvious as you get higher), and up the tundra slope. 

Here are some pictures of my way to the saddle:

Once on the saddle I turned right, and scrambled northwest to the summit of South Twilight Peak.  This was mostly class 2.  I just looked for grassy gullies and ascended them, heading northwest, until I came to the top, then walked the short distance southwest to the summit. 

I summited unranked South Twilight Peak at 9:10am

South Twilight Peak:

From South Twilight Peak, Twilight Peak was to the northwest.

It was a class 2 tundra/rock walk to get there that only took me 20 minutes.  This is the route I took, sticking mostly to the ridge.

There was a bit of a false summit.  The summit is to the north.

I summited Twilight Peak at 9:30am.  Sorry, no summit video: I thought I took one, but when I uploaded it, it was only 1 second long, so it wasn’t very helpful. 

From the summit of Twilight Peak, I could see North Twilight Peak to the North.

To get there, I continued following the ridge north.

It was all class 2 until I got here. 

This is where the route finding and class 3 fun began.  If you haven’t already put on your helmet, now is a good time to do so.  I could tell there were a lot of ways to navigate this ridge successfully, but many would end in getting cliffed out.  I chose to go right.  Here’s an overall view of my route out of this fun.  There’s a hidden gully I took to get back to the ridge.

This is class 3, and pretty steep, but if you choose your line carefully and drop down just to the right of the gully, the gully is easy to access.

I passed through the gully, which was a bit sketchy.  These photos don’t do the terrain justice, but the graupel here had turned to ice, and there’s a bit of a waterflow on the rocks, which had also turned to ice.  I put on my microspikes (they’re ALWAYS in my bag), and carefully navigated through the notch and down the gully, being deliberate so as not to slip on the ice.  There’s exposure here, so falling would be detrimental.  At the bottom of the gully was a large boulder.  This can easily be climbed up from the other direction, but heading down the gully I found a very small hole to the right I was able to crawl through (I’m glad I’m small!).  You can also climb over it to the left, but I didn’t like the conditions (ice) on that side.  The boulder is circled.

Here’s looking back up at the boulder at the base of the gully.  I crawled through the hole to the left (circled).  

Once passing around the boulder, I immediately turned right and re-gained the ridge.

The rest of the route to North Twilight was class 2.  I descended to the saddle, then re-ascended to the ridge on a small patch of tundra.  The slope angle was low, so it was an easy trek.

Once on the ridge, I turned left and headed west for the summit.

The only problem?  The summit ridge is rocky but flat, so it’s difficult to tell exactly where the summit is.  I walked the length of the summit, but I’m pretty sure the actual summit is in the middle (not the far west end as indicated on a map).  There aren’t any cairns, but there is a circle of rocks on the middle of the ridge placed on top of another rock that look ‘intentionally’ placed.

I summited North Twilight Peak at 10:40am

North Twilight Peak:

Now to head back to Crater Lake.  I did this by turning around and following the ridge east.  While there are some ups and downs on this ridge, there are game trails that can help keep this a class 2 trek with one or two easy class 3 sections (I’ve labeled the route below).  Here are some pictures of the ridge.

I could now see Crater Lake in the distance.  Here I found a game trail that would lead me most of the way there.  I descended on the tundra, heading northeast, towards the small pond I’d seen early that morning.  There I picked up the trail that headed west back to Crater Lake.  Here’s the overall view of the route:

And some pictures.  First, I found the tundra to the right of me, and descended on the game trail that wound its way back to the ridge.

This trail ended in a meadow, so I headed northeast through the trees towards the small pond.

Once at the pond, I followed the trail back to Crater Lake.

I made it back to Crater Lake at 11:20am.  Once back at Crater Lake I checked the weather (I had cell service for almost this entire hike).  Forecasts for the next day were all over the board (calling from anywhere from half an inch to a foot of snow, starting anywhere from 7am to noon), so I decided to pack it out and come back another day for the other peak I had in the area.  I packed up my tent and followed Crater Lake trail back to Andrews Lake. 

I made it back to Andrews Lake at 2:45pm, making today’s hike 11.61 miles with 3034’ of elevation gain, and the total hike 17.11 miles with 4573’ of elevation gain.

On to the next trailhead!