Stone Conditioner

[Flying_Ned]

3 of us did some training on Mt. Stone last Saturday in mixed weather--sun, wind, rain, sun. Trail is in normal shape with snow just below the second headwall. The mountain has seen little activity, except for bears, so far this year and no track in the upper snowfields exists except for ours. The shortcut, or direct route up the obvious coulior to the high basin below the summit block is dry in the upper half. A little class 3-4 scramble will save 25 minutes from the base of coulior, though you miss the interesting pillow basalt on toward the NW corner and ridge scramble. We were completely socked in on the summit, but things opened up on the descent so we took a side trip to St. Peter's gate and got a good look at the high route to upper Lena and Scout Lake--still snowbound. Lake of the Angels also remains completely frozen over and snowbound. The tarns on the first bench are melted out, however. Other than that, all things status quo. Good knee pounding descent.

[Fairweather]

Nice TR! Stone is one of my favorites. My brother and I did the traverse you talk of as a one-day a couple years ago. Lower Lena to Upper Lena to Scout Lake junction to Stone Ponds to St Peters Gate to Lake of the Angels, and out the Putvin to our mountain bikes that we had stashed that morning at the Maple Creek washout. (now repaired) The traverse was about 75% snow when we did it in early July. Easy routefinding except right out of Upper Lena where a 300 foot climb up led to a dead end. Left the car at 6am and got back to the car at 7pm.

[Flying_Ned]

That's a beautiful traverse--especially a little later in season when the alpland opens up a bit. One of those rare car-to-car high traverses.