Lynx Peak - Mountain Realtalk

Lynx Peak has been on the hit list for awhile now. Located in the heart of Hatcher Pass, this big boy commands attention to those who lay eyes on it. I went out for a solo mission the last weekend of August before heading down to Salt Lake for a few weeks. I knew this was probably my last good weekend in AK to knock off a fun objective so the time was freaking nigh!

If you have ever hiked to upper Reed Lake you have definitely seen Lynx Peak. It is the prominent peak that towers over the lake on lookers left in the picture.

The weather called for some stuff rolling in around noon so I had to get an annoyingly early start. Luckily that ended up being a good call because it was bluebird as the sun was coming up!

I followed the standard Reed Lake Trail from the Archangel trailhead. Skirted around the left side of the lake and then headed up the boulder field to Bomber Pass. Don’t worry too much about picking the perfect way through all these rocks, just head upwards and you will eventually get to the saddle. The view from Bomber Pass is neat-O! You can see Upper Reed Lake on the right and the top of Lynx on the left.

I opted to take the Northwest Ridge route, which is just a ridge scramble up towards the peak. Unfortunately the ridge eventually got too spicy for my risk tolerance being solo. The rocks were a lot more icy and mossy than I was expecting. This was the point I made the call to turn around, it is hard to get much of a perspective in this photo but I tried a little cowboy saddle ridge ride on the dots but couldn’t step down to the next rock ledge. I am pretty sure that an easier way would be to drop down and sneak up that gulley on the bottom left, but Hatcher had an insane snow year last season and the gulley was filled with bulletproof snow. Done struck out!

Still had to get past this guy for the way back on the ridge!

I realized that this spicy ridge could be easily avoided by dropping down onto Bomber Glacier and going around. I didn’t have the right equipment at the time but I could go home and get some sharp stuff and give her another shot the next morning! When I got home I did some research and realized that the Glacier Bypass is a thing and is easier, I should’ve looked that up earlier #whoops! Here is the route I would take tomorrow seen from Bomber Glacier.

The next morning was another early drive out to Hatcher Pass and soon enough we were running on the Reed Lakes trail. This time armed with an ice axe and some fresh Chainsen Ultra spikes/crampons. I honestly don’t know what category these fall under, but they work really well. This was my first time trail running with an ice axe, and I was surprised how well it secured to the Black Diamond Distance running vest. I didn’t really like having a spike that close to my head, but it was also too long of an axe for the mission. Nice job BD!

Made it in pretty good time to the pass, dropped down onto bomber glacier and very quickly bypassed the spicy ridge. The rest of the way up was pretty straightforward, just had to be careful about all of the icy boulders. There was one icy snow patch I couldn’t find my way around near the top that felt a little scary for me. I had to chop out the first couple steps with my ice axe because I didn’t just my spikes thaaat much, but it leveled off pretty quick. It literally doesn’t look steep in this picture but I assure you those first couple steps onto that snow are scary!