Cathedral Rock, and a nameless little pond below it. There is a skin of ice in the shady part of the pond, and you can see Russ on the trail to the left.
Got up at 4:00, the standard departure time, picked Russ up, and headed in the direction of Snoqualmie Pass. Ahead of us Jupiter glowed in the sky.
I was a little apprehensive about glacier travel; I’d been unable to find my seat harness last night, so I packed the rope anyhow, in hopes that maybe Russ might have found it amongst his stuff, since last time I had it, I’m pretty sure, was for Thompson Peak. I got myself all sure that I’d left it out on Mt. Erie with Jarrett, but we attempted Thompson Peak the following weekend, and I drug the rope along for rappelling, and it’s hard to believe I’d have left the seat harness behind. No, I’m sure it’s buried someplace in amongst the junkdrifts in the garage. [Turned out that I actually left in Fred's car after our Hood outing, and didn't figure it out for several months.]
It took just about two hours to get to the trailhead. The road along Salmon la Sac lake is perfectly smooth and almost new; after that, though, there’s ten miles of washboarded dirt road, not as bad as some I’ve been on, but tedious. There are a surprising number of vacation houses up there; I avoid calling them cabins because they’re pretty big, lots of two story houses, built on poured concrete foundations and everything.
The parking lot was pretty full; there must have been twenty cars there, which surprised me; I’d thought this would be a pretty obscure hike; certainly if not for the "Selected Climbs" book, I would never have heard of it.
The trail was in very good condition, obviously well used and well maintained. It crosses the Salmon la Sac river, over a newly build bridge, consisting of 2x12 lumber over a couple of two-foot thick logs. The old bridge, presumably, was sitting in a clearing next to the new one, a metal frame, bent and twisted. Probably the floods of spring beat it to pieces.
Turns out Russ is sort of interested in mushrooms, since he had a roommate in camp one summer who was totally obsessed by them. The trail takes you to the top of a ridge, with numerous switchbacks. Once up on the ridge, we came upon this beautiful lake, just a stunning sight. There was a fellow camping there, named Bob, who was from the faculty at Ellensburg, and had just moved from Wisconsin. Madison, of course.
We pushed on, and came to another small lake, more of a pond, below Cathedral Peak. There was some ice on the surface, which looked kind of pretty, and we stopped here for our first lunch.
An hour later, we were at Peggy’s Pond, yet another beautiful turquoise lake, at the base of Cathedral Peak. It took us about 2½ hours, including our lunch stop, to get there. The hike was interrupted on the open ridge, by a flight of two F-15s, flying low and fast, and very very loudly.
From there, the trail heads off to the west, up a minor scree slope, up what turns out to be a terminal moraine of the glacier that used to come off the east side of Mt. Daniel. We went up over that, and into the bowl formed by the glacier. The trail seemed to go up along the left side of the bowl, but because Russ didn’t have crampons (or boots that would take them) we descended down to the bottom of the bowl and ascended up the north side, which was relatively snow-free. The south side, which was pretty well shaded, was pretty icy. Apparently you can avoid all that by traversing the top of the ridge, which we saw a few people doing.
There were a remarkable number of people up there. We saw a total of seven people (and two dogs) descending the standard route, and at least half a dozen going up, either along the standard route or along the ridge.
So, most of the rest of the way up to the summit of what turned out to be the East Peak was pretty much a scramble, interrupted by snow field crossings. Some of it was just delightful granite, moderately steep but with plenty of handholds, and completely clear of rocks. Other stretches, less steep, were littered with rocks.
Once we got to the summit, it became obvious that we were on the easternmost summit. The trail, which disappeared through a saddle and which we assumed went behind the summit, actually continues along a mostly flat route up to the center summit, which is about 100 feet higher. But, given the time (it was about noon) we decided to call this good. On the north side of the saddle between the east and middle summits was a glacier that actually had crevasses, which I guess is where the photo from the book came from.
The view was beautiful. Through the slight haze, we could see as far south as Mt. Adams, and easily see Baker, Sloan Peak, and Glacier Peak. I had a tough time picking out Mt. Stuart, from this angle it appears to be almost a pyramid, but it’s the only thing nearly so high to the east of Daniel.
Descending from the summit wasn’t as difficult as I’d feared. We found the trail, which was less steep than the route we took up, and passed two other guys heading up to this summit, and met a couple more at the saddle. I mentioned how surprised I was at the number of people, and one guy said that when he’d gone to REI, they’d been completely sold out of the Mt. Daniel map.
One of the interesting aspects of the hike/climb was looking at the rocks. Going up the glacier basin, the rocks were covered with striations from the glacier grinding over them. I remember seeing that below Interglacier on Rainier, and being so impressed that I took a photo of it; here, they’re everywhere.
There are also a lot of metamorphic rocks, rocks that look like concrete, they’ve go so many little round rocks in them, some even protruding out. Even the granite where the glacial striations were had rocks embedded in them, erratics, planed off neat as you please. Kind of interesting.
The hike out was pretty routine. Descending down the snow slopes, which were not so icy (except at a couple of really dicey spots) and down onto the granite of the moraine. Then back through Peggy’s Pond, which isn’t so pretty in the afternoon sun, and back down the ridge to the car.
We got to the car about 4:45. The drive out took a bit longer than the trip in; we were at Russ’s place at about 7:15, and after a stop at Safeway for some beer and flowers (for Heidi) I was home a little before 8:00.
So, all told, it wasn’t the epic I was hoping for. I’d have liked more of a snow climb, but that’s hard to ask for in October. It might be a more interesting climb in July, but this way we did get to see a lot more rocks, which I’ve been interested in lately. But it’s not a steep climb, it’s not particularly challenging, and in July the lakes probably wouldn’t have been nearly so pretty. If I go up there again, it would probably be to climb Cathedral Peak, which is an andesite plug, and kind of interesting. Looks like you’d want a rope for that, at least for the descent.