Mount Daniel
Oct 21-22, 2006
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The weather forecast for the weekend called for
“brilliant
sunshine.” How could we pass up this opportunity for an overnight
outing? With
the short days and our slow speed, we thought we would try Daniel
again, but
this time over two days and via the scramble route. We left the
Cathedral Pass trailhead at
1:30 PM on Saturday and arrived at Peggy’s Pond around 4:30 PM. We
filled up
our water bottles and then hiked another couple of hundred feet on the
boot
path up the ridge to a flat spot and set up camp. We had a
delicious dinner of beef chili with cheese and then settled in for the
night.
We left camp at 7:20 AM and made our way up to the
ridge
crest. A good boot path ran along the ridge between the Hyas Creek
basin and Circle
Lake
and then turned northwest towards the east peak. We finally got a view
of the
west
summit and it looked far away. We traversed past the east and middle
peaks,
slowing down to either kick steps into or avoid some of the harder
patches of
snow. We eventually put on crampons when we reached continuous snow
below
the west peak and made good time to just below the summit block. There
we
removed our crampons for the easy 30’ scramble to the summit. We
reached the
summit just after 10:30 AM. It was quite windy, but a beautiful sunny
day. We
took in the views of the Lynch and Daniel glaciers and Pea Soup Lake
on the far side of the summit as
well as the surrounding peaks. We descended before too long and started
the
traverse back to the ridge. We stopped along the way at a large snow
patch to
melt some water and have a snack. We then continued along the ridge
enjoying the views. We arrived at camp just past 2 PM. We
took a
short break, stripping layers and changing back to trail shoes, packed
up, and
made it to Peggy’s Pond by 3 PM. Motivated by sandwiches and raspberry
lemonade at
the
Quiznos in CleElum, the hike out went quickly and we reached the
trailhead at
just after 5:30 PM. We hadn’t seen a single person all day. It was a
fun trip on a beautiful fall weekend.
East peak of Mount Daniel from the ridge
West peak of Mount Daniel
Steve and Elain on the summit
Lynch Glacier and Pea Soup Lake
Two caves near point 7662
Elain on the ridge
Elain on the ridge with Circle Lake on the right
Fall foliage near Peggy's Pond
