Started at the Carne Mountain trail and completed the Carne Mountain High Route in a day.

Note: the road to the Phelps Creek TH is very rough, but it's passable. For reference I drive a 2005 Toyota Carolla and if you drive slow it's no big deal.

The trail to Carne Mountain is well defined and has recently been used by stock. It's dusty but beautiful. Biting flies and mosquitos are thick right now, but it's worth it.

After Carne MTN the high route basically side-hills the Entiat Peaks. It's pretty well defined and easy to follow in most parts. In a few places, particularly the more lush meadows and the loose boulderfields, the trail disappears so some routefinding experience is good here.

The final pass before Ice Lakes is very loose shale with no trail and additionally  at the pass there is a steep snowfield where the trail descends and connects with the Leroy Basin trail. I was running parts of the trail so I was wearing running shoes, therefore, even though I had an ice axe, I decided not to descend the snowfield but to climb the ridge and then descend the ridge line (class 3 scramble) down to the pass above Ice Lakes. Without spikes this is probably your best route until that snowfield melts out.

Maude has a lot of snow still and traction is probably the best idea to ascend. 

I descended to Leroy Basin which is a steep unmaintained trail but it's easy to follow. The trail from the basin to Phelps Creek Trail is steep and has a few small blow downs, but it's not an issue.

Easy stroll out Phelps Creek. My GPS had me at 20 miles in 9.5 hours. Beautiful day!

Maude has been on my list for a while now and it did not disappoint. My friend at I started around 5:30 am. The first 3 miles are flat. After you turn up Leroy TH it's very steep for the mile to the basin. The views of Seven Finger Jack almost made me climb that instead. We started the traverse over to Maude. We were planning on the standard route that traverses all the way to a notch on climbers right then all the way back up the ridge. We kept assessing our options along the way and I'm glad we did. There is quite a bit of snow left in the area. We decided to take a gully up to a steep snow filled coulior instead of going all the way around. So so so glad we did this. The snow was firm and fun to climb and the gully wasn't terribly loose (not the case for the others). We hit the ridge and walked up to the summit, which seemed like it took forever even after cutting off a bunch of distance. We made it to the summit in 5 hours.

The views from the top were out of this world. Such a great position. We lounged around in the sun for a long time, getting annoyed by bugs. We started down the standard route. In hindsight I wish we would have downclimbed the snow slope and gully we went up. We encountered sketchy snow conditions on the standard route in a notch that I did not want to cross. So we went down another gully, which was loose, traversed way over under the standard route on chossy loose crap and soft snow. We finally made it to the notch where Carne and Maude break off. We would have loved to make it a loop with Carne but with snow conditions decided against it. So we plunge stepped and traversed over to the "trail" which was snow covered except a very few intermittent glimpses. Made it back to the basin and trail and to the car. Creek crossings are high right now so expect your boots to get wet. There are about 5 of them, maybe more. Please be proficient in route finding and self arrest to attempt this right now. GPS highly recommended out there. Also of note is that I did not consider this much of a scramble at all. It took us as long to go up as down. 15 miles, 6300' total gain. 

Trip report with more photos: http://www.nwhikers.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=8017086

My brother and I wanted to get some elevation to prepare for our coming Mt Rainier climb (click my name to see my trip reports), and this mountain looked both fun and challenging. We arrived at the trailhead at 9:45am, and started up the Phelps Creek trail. This trail was once a road, and is very easy hiking. The flowers were in their prime, and we actually passed the junction with the Leroy Creek trail and just kept hiking up toward Spider Meadows. I later realized that we'd hiked more than the three miles the to the junction, and we went back and headed up the Leroy Creek trail (the junction is very well marked). We climbed up to the Leroy Basin (gorgeous!), and then continued along the trail till it crossed a small creek. Here we left the trail and scrambled up to the saddle between 7FJ (Seven Fingered Jack) and Mt Maude. We donned our crampons and pulled out our ice axes. The climbed to the summit was steep, but the route is obvious. We even saw tracks in the snow from other climbers. we reached the summit at 4:00pm. After a taking lots of pics and catching our breath (as much breath as there is at 9,100 ft), we descended back to the Leroy Basin, where we found a solo climber planning to summit the following day. we kept a good pace back to the car, and reached the parking lot before 7:00pm. Awesome trip. Stunning view of Glacier Peak (10,000+ ft volcano!), Bonanza Peak, and many many others. Be sure to check out the Flickr Link! If a picture is worth a thousand words, then this link has the equivalent of over 300,000 words! Not to mention the videos! I also have an abundance of pics from other hikes such as Mt St Helens, the Enchantments, and many others. If you have a hike/climb that you just love, please share it with me at danieltveten@gmail.com! I'm always looking for ideas!

Enjoyed a three-day trip to Ice Lakes via the Carne Mountain High Route, and a side trip up 9,000 ft + Mt Maude. The Carne Mountain High Route is easy enough to follow in most spots, but entirely disappears in others. Everyone I encountered lost it at one point or another, including myself - you'll want to have some route finding skills and equipment, and be comfortable with off trail travel and some scrambling. I did encounter a few groups of hunters on the way. To get to Upper Ice Lake, I took the prominent saddle above Chipmunk Creek, traversed below Freezer Peak (Pt 8017), and then headed down to the basin. On the return, I took the slightly more boot-beaten trail/scramble down from the same saddle above Ice Lake. I probably preferred the former route. Upper Ice Lake was stark and beautiful, with larches in every shade of green and orange imaginable. Lower Ice Lake was equally scenic. I recommend accessing Lower Ice Lake via Upper Ice Lake's outfall - where you'll encounter delightful waterfalls and pools, perfect for a quick dip. Maude is a safe, easy hike from Ice Lake. The basin out of Upper Ice Lake looks steep, but it isn't bad once you're on it. The shoulder up Maude to the summit really is just a walk - keep to your left for the clearest tread, along a rocky spine. Views of Glacier and the North Cascades at the top are some of the finest in the state! PS - Although there were low clearance vehicles at the Phelps Creek Trailhead, and I have driven to it in a Honda Civic myself, I definitely don't recommend it. The last several miles are just awful.