Professor5

Trip: Cashmere Mountain - Date: 5/16/2015 Trip Report: With a cancelled Baker climb and friends cragging at Leavenworth, a friend and I were looking for something more conditioning focused. Cashmere was still on my bulger list. Neither of us had climbed that beofre, so we read up and hit the trailhead around 7:15. Burned through the first few miles and found ourselves at eight mile lake. Wait, eight-mile lake? We realized we missed the trail switch, so turned around and hiked back a half mile to start heading up the switchbacks. Moving up, there are a fair number of trees down in the burn area. I was amazed at the lack of snow. Things are melting very fast. There was a bit of snow descending down to Lake Caroline on the north side of slopes, but very little on the south sides. We continued up the trail around the lake with spotty snow, making trail finding a bit more interesting. Crossed the creek that flows from Lake Caroline, and left the trail around 6400' to start cutting across. Snow is melting out everywhere. A few punch through and postholes crossing the valley, and we started up towards the ridge. Moving on the snow was preferable for us, but you couldn't really stitch a continual line as it really is melting out. On the ridge from 7500' to 7800' is pretty much melted out with a nice climbers path. Reaching the col at 8000 we started up as another party was coming down. Chatted a bit, they had been working on similar beta that we had read, but didn't get up. We decided to go look around for ourselves. The original beta about traversing the snowfield to the left didn't feel good to us since the angle was higher than a month ago, but more because the snow was very slide prone. So we went straight up the ridge, hitting where the other party turned around. Following other summer reports, we hooked left around a boulder and found a route that went up towards the first false summit. The first few moves felt class 4 to me, mixed with loose snow that could make finding steps challenging. After the first two sets of moves things simplified back to class 3 and we found ourselves on the first false summit. From there the route looked much more doable, as there seems to be less snow if you can transition to the south side of the upper peak. However, we had hit our turnaround time, and there was a chance of weather in a few hours. We decided to turn around (~150 feet below the summit) and start the long descent back. Climb down was uneventful, but long. In a few weeks when it melts out a little bit further things should simplify a bit more. Alternatively, if you camped out so you could hit it when snow was firm early it may be easier to use the snow. By the time we were there, much of it was mush and you had to be very conscious on what steps you took. 20 miles (with our misroute), just under 13 hours. Carried snowshoes and crampons but never used them. Gear Notes: Ice axe & Helmets. Carried snowshoes and crampons but never used them.