Devin27 Posted August 26, 2011 Share Posted August 26, 2011 Trip: Cashmere Mountain 8-21-2011 - Windy Pass Date: 8/26/2011 Trip Report: This past weekend we day climbed Cashmere Mountain in the Enchantment Area. We will be back in the core Enchantments in Larch season, but this was a good warm up and taste of things to come. Left Seattle at 4am and were heading up the Eightmile lake trail at 7am. The trail to eightmile lake was relatively flat, which meant we had wasted 3 or so miles gaining only about 1000 ft. The trail up to Caroline and Little Caroline lakes was dry, hot and buggy, bring lots of water. We got eaten alive as we stopped for water at Caroline Lake and horseflies followed and conitnued to attack everytime we stopped. With the bugs driving us along, we made good time to Windy Pass. We had read about the climbers path leading directly up the ridge, but decided to just stick with the trail to avoid tedious bushwhacking. From Windy pass, it was an easy trail up to the summit block of Cashmere. Once on rocks, we traversed around to the climbers left until we crossed over the North ridge. There we found the easy class 3 gully to the summit. We had to cross 3 small snow fields on the traverse, but they had nice steps kicked in. They have a interesting run out that I wouldn't want to fall down without an axe so I used mine, but you could get by without it. At the summit, we discovered there was a recent hatching of flying ants and the summit was literally covered in thousands of them. I stayed only long enough for a photo and to discover the summit register was gone. The PVC pipe was there, but broken open and there was no log at all. On the decent we decided to follow the climbers trail down the ridge on the direct route to the lakes. This trail disappears half way down the ridge. At this point we decided to try and take the path of least resistance to rejoin the trail to the West. This turned out to no be such a good plan, as we ended up in waist deep field of flowers and then in a marsh. I think we could, and maybe should, have followed the ridge all the way down to the lake. Hopefully someone familiar with this decent can add more. The hike out was long and buggy, but not too hot with the setting sun. Back at the trailhead by 7pm for brauts and beer in Leavenworth. Leave Seattle 4:30am Trailhead 7:00am Eight Mile Lake 8:10am Windy Pass 11:00am Summit 1:20pm Cars- 7:00pm Car to Car- 12 hours 17.6 Miles round Trip 5600 ft Elevation Photos!!! Eightmile Lake and out first battle with the bugs Up the dry trail to Caroline lake The wildflower are out in full force Robin hiking down to Caroline lake First views of the summit of Cashmere Danika and Robin taking a break at Windy pass Aubrey at Windy Pass More flowers Heading along the ridge Taking a break to enjoy the view of Rainier Crossing the snow fields below the summit block Class 3 gully on the far side of the north ridge Group summit shot Me and Danika at the summit Glacier Peak in the distance, next time maybe Aubrey at the summit Me on the summit, being attacked by flying ants Our ridge decent Heading through the meadows on our misguided decent Sorry flowers Did give me the best flower shots of the trip though More wildflowers Long and tiring decent Gear Notes: Ice axe (used for 2 minutes across snow field), Mountaineering boots (Carried, but never used, Day hikers are fine) BUG SPRAY(Used all that we had and it wasnt enough!!!!) Approach Notes: Trail is clear and easy all the way to the summit area. 3 small snow patches near the base of the summit, but easy to cross and will likely be gone soon. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete_H Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Nice. Such nice country. Thanks. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave A. Posted August 28, 2011 Share Posted August 28, 2011 Nice TR, beautiful photos! Those upper meadows are lusher this year than I've ever seen them. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mountainsloth Posted September 4, 2011 Share Posted September 4, 2011 truly lovely Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan_Miller Posted September 5, 2011 Share Posted September 5, 2011 I climbed Cashmere on last Thursday Sept. 1st, and camped at Little Lake Caroline, and can truly attest to the ferocity and numbers of the mozzies at the lake level at least. I raced up the peak so fast from my camp that I didn't really encounter much in the way of bugs from 6300' on up. But back at camp I broke down quickly and hurried down to the car in an effort to avoid them at all costs. For what it's worth, the Eight Mile Road was as horribly washboardy as most any road I can recall in forty years of climbing in the Cascades and elsewhere in North America. And, I have a great vehicle for driving such roads. A real teeth rattler! 10mph at the absolute max, a little faster on the way down. Thankfully it's only 3 or so miles to the Eight Mile Lake Trailhead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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