Teanaway Peak and Three Brothers West Peak

7/11/2023

The 50 Peaks project is back in full swing! Last week, David led the first outing for the 2023 interns, Erik, Inthone, and Nick. Three Brothers West was the 25th peak surveyed by the project. Halfway there!

On the first day, we were joined by Richard Ramsden, a research biochemist and alpine plant enthusiast (a phlox specialist!). A 4 mile hike and scramble brought us to the top of Teanaway Peak at 6779 feet. At the summit, the soil was unstable and relatively undeveloped which made our surveying a challenge, but great training to get our scrambling legs under us for the summer. Maybe for this same reason, overall species diversity was low compared to nearby peaks that have been sampled in past summers. However, we were excited to find Monardella odoratissima, which had not been previously recorded on nearby peaks!

The next day, (after heading into Ellensburg to repair a flat!) we backpacked along Stafford Creek and over Navaho Pass to set up camp at the headwaters of Etienne Creek. The following morning, we surveyed Three Brothers West Peak. The dominant species seemed to be Eriogonum ovalifolium, Erigeron compositus, and Polemonium plucherimum. We were surprised also to see Campanula scabrella! The Three Brothers trip as a whole turned out to be 13 miles and 5300 ft. of elevation gain.