Mt. Daniel, Part II

The plan was to climb Eldorado in a day yesterday. Due to an unfavorable weather forecast, we switched plans and decided to give Mt. Daniel another try. (You’ll recall we didn’t make the summit three weeks ago thanks to a variety of factors.)

Driving to the trailhead was almost as adventurous as the climb itself: In Cle Elum I narrowly missed hitting a skunk that appeared like a land mine in front of my car as I was turning onto a dark street. Then on the dirt road between the Fish Lake Ranger Station and Scatter Creek, I met a deer that proceeded to not just stare into the headlights, but run right at them. I slowed to a stop and still narrowly missed the thing!

Two large field mice and a mother and baby deer later I got to Scatter Creek, where I was going to spend Friday night.

On Saturday morning, five of us piled into Mike?s truck and drove to the Deception Pass trailhead. On the way there we saw two beautiful elk ? one with the beginnings of a really big rack ? and a black bear cub running down the road. Wow!

The climb was great, but fairly uneventful. We took the trail most of the way to the ridge below Cathedral Pass then ran it over to the pass where you traverse to Peggy?s Pond. We walked 2/3 of the way around the mountain (literally) to the Lynch Glacier, which we ascended in near whiteout conditions.

Our route finding was spot on and we summited at around 1:30. We then headed down the scramble route (also in near whiteout conditions until the basin adjacent to Peggy?s Pond).

By now the mileage was starting to take its toll. We wandered our way back down to Squaw Lake and then back down the trail. We finally reached the parking lot at about 6:20 p.m. ? almost 13 hours after departing that morning.

Pizza in Roslyn never tasted so good!

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