[TR] Mt. Daniel - Lynch Glacier 6/28/2008

[mkporwit]

Trip: Mt. Daniel - Lynch Glacier

 

Date: 6/28/2008

 

Trip Report:

A few of us climbed Mt. Daniel via Lynch glacier June 28-29. We went up via Hyas Lake and down past Peggy's Pond.

 

We started off with a bushwhack. 4 miles in, having crossed the Cle Elum river, we rapidly lost the trail. Rumor has it there is flagging tape in those trees somewhere, but we never found any. We were aiming for the PCT at 4000', but instead climbed up into a cliff band and had to traverse north. Slide alder, devil's club and fir trees abound. From the Cle Elum river the section of the PCT is actually pretty easy to locate -- it is just above a confluence of two streams on the SE face of the ridge.

 

After 10' on the PCT we climbed up the right of those two streams. There was a good snow lid over it, which made for fast going up. Traversed left at ~4400', picked up another ridge and took that all the way up to the gap just below Pea Soup Lake. Camped by a stand of trees just east of the gap at ~5900'.

 

Sunday morning we headed up to Pea Soup Lake. It is frozen and easily crossable. Must be at least a foot of snow over the ice, and very few puddles of meltwater on it. The Lynch glacier is also in good shape -- saw a couple of minor crevasses at ~6500' and that is it. The bergschrund at the top is starting to yawn wide where it pulls away from the summit block, but there is a great snow ramp to the saddle. A couple of hundred feet of easy scrambling got us to the summit and some fantastic views.

 

The descent started off easy, with part of the trail melted out. Then came a traverse on steep, hard snow over the face plunging down to Circle lake. It did not see much sun and was very firm. Some plunge stepping and glissading brought us down to Peggy's Pond. It is still mostly frozen over and there is lots of snow everywhere. Ran into a couple of telemarkers looking for turns on the south faces above us.

 

The traverse around Cathedral Peak over the steep snow field dropping down to Deep Lake was spicy at times. We gained the ridge and followed the skin tracks down, eventually loosing them and cliffing out above Squaw Lake. Another traverse and bushwhack brought us back on route. There are a couple of camping sites melted out at the lake. The trail from Squaw Lake is mostly snow-covered and we lost it repeatedly, having another bushwhacking session between 4600' and 4200'. We finally found the switchbacks and headed down to the cars, looking forward to beers and burgers at the Old #3.

 

Scrambling up to the PCT -- out of the brush, into the cliffs:

 

Pea Soup Lake at dawn

 

Looking down at Pea Soup Lake, with Glacier peak in the background:

 

Traversing above Circle and Venus Lakes on the descent:

 

Descending to Peggy's Pond:

 

Peggy's Pond is still mostly frozen:

 

Gian crossing the logjam at Squaw Lake:

 

All photos courtesy of Darrel Robertson

 

Gear Notes:

The usual glacier acoutrements. Also of interest, turns out AT&T has a strong signal at the summit of Mt. Daniel. Kinda surprised me...

 

Approach Notes:

Fish Creek road is snow-free to the trail head. It was regraded on June 28. Scatter Creek was easily fordable in my 4x4 at 10am on Saturday and 7pm on Sunday.

[belayerslayer]

wonderful! Thanks for the tr! I was just up in that area 3 weeks ago, forced to park about half a mile before the first stream crossing. The bushwhack up to cathedral rock was not pleasant either. no summit. guess i'll be heading back that direction soon!