capn_canuck

Went up for a 1 day climb on Monday... plan was to do Hyas Creek/Daniel Glacier. Bugs were pleasantly absent on the hike in and around Peggy's Pond. Hyas Creek glacier was bare with a bunch of pretty small crevasses. Ended up scrambling from the basin up to the upper snowfields over glacier-polished rock at the SW end of the glacier. Had a look over the ridge at the top of the snowfield, but decided to traverse NW towards the saddle between the east summit and the spire on it's NE end. We thought we'd get down to the Daniel Glacier from there, to find out we'd run out at a cliff above the glacier. Coming up out of the basin, we should've headed up to a spot below the spire to get onto the glacier, but the wall leading from the basin up to that point looked a little too smooth to go up. Better to do that early in the year when it's snow covered. Daniel Glacier crevasses were pretty open, so we wouldn't have had time in the day to go that route anyway. By then, we were too late to go back to the SE ridge route and hit the west summit (and still get back out by dark), so we bagged the east peak and called it a day. Really nice views, although there was an awful lot of brown haze to the north from the fires in BC I guess. Descent was a nice scenic walk along the SE ridge.

thanks for the info.

Anyone been up to Mt. Daniel lately (or around this time of year)? I'm thinking about the southeast ridge from Peggy's Pond. I'm guessing it's an awful lot of loose rock by now?

ugh... nevermind, I realized the same thing after looking at trails to get there.it's something like 12 miles in to spade lake.

was there 2 weekends ago. The lunch counter is pretty melted out, and I didn't really see any signs of human waste. There was a stream of meltwater in the afternoons, but fill up before it freezes again. Went Thursday, and there was only a (relative) handful of other people there. Came back down on Friday, and it was a constant stream of people heading up. Much nicer if you can avoid the crowds.

I see a route up from venus lake (south spur) on the south side of Mt. Daniel in the Beckey guide, but I can't find any mention on the web of anyone ever going that route. Does anyone here have any info on the route?