Sentinel Mountain April 28, 2026.
I fought the mountain and....I won but the mountain put up a helluva fight.
Since the end of March I’ve been up that peak 3 times (twice to the summit and once to within 300 vertical feet). I now have a multitude of tracks going up and down it from Bartlett Road. Some routes traverse terrain that is way too thick and cliffy and one is the magic line that, due to an error I discovered by serendipidy while descending yesterday.
First, I wanted to find the hunter’s cabin Shayne Paddock, Jack Coleman and I discovered in 2006. I had an old national Geographic track log that sat on my PC for all those years and in it was a trackpoint named “Cabin”, which I managed to put in my GPS. Turns out the WP is 0.15 miles away from the cabin, which I attribute to using different datums (NAD 27 vs. WGS 84). However as I was approaching the WP a flash of colour caught my eye and sure enough, there was the old cabin. Fallen trees had crushed it and the vinyl covering was shredded but it was unmistakably the same one. There is tons of blowdown in that area, tons.
Just to be sure I checked out the wrong WP and there’s no way anyone would build a cabin in that spot.
I avoided my ascent route from last week by sidehilling downstream well above the brook and detouring around massive blowdown and cliffs. Didn’t take me long to get onto the upper end of the Cobble Hill Ridge and head on up the
. Long story short, after a moderate amount of horrendous thickness, that I succeeded in detouring around thanks to a weakness in a cliff, I stood on the summit. Along the final 500 yard summit ridge there is an intermittent herd path (the term path being used very loosely). At one point I noticed a very fresh-looking scuff mark and thought, someone has been here recently. Then I realized it was me one week ago! There was just a tiny bit of snow on the summit ridge, no snow anywhere else.
The descent: no tracks in the snow to follow. I was still using my wonky compass that requires a smack or two for the needle to spin freely and either this or pure user error led me to a great descent route with neither cliffs nor thick woods. Following the altimeter and the compass very carefully with frequent map consults I sideswiped some massive cliffs. I had zero visuals so stuck to the bearing like glue. But my direction of travel and the slope didn’t jive with the map so I stopped and consulted my phone. I was not far off but in the wrong bowl going the wrong way. A course correction and regular checks of the phone got me back on track. I would definitely use this route again. It avoids all the cliffs and the woods are open the entire way down to 2900 feet. After that you can deviate around any thick patches.
Now that I have found the perfect line I won’t be going back soon because for now I have had my fill of Sentinel Mountain. It’s time for me to explore some other mountain.