Went on a 3 day, 2 night trip in an attempt to scramble Osceola Peak, Mt Carru and Mt Lago. Started my trip from Slate Pass, which still had some snow blocking the road past Harts Pass, but it was only about a half mile to the trailhead from where I parked. The north side of the pass had a decent amount of snow still, and could be frustrating late in the day when the snow is soft. There is a well defined traverse that follows the trail underneath. I got off trail quite a bit coming down from the pass into the valley due to snow covering a lot of the trail through the woods, but it wasn't too hard to find the trail again (GPS is a big help here). I crossed Middle Fork Pasayten River without incident, it was deep enough to warrant taking off boots and pants to wade across. Traveled along the Middle Fork Pasayten / Robinson Creek trail for about 10 miles, trail was in decent condition but after about 8 miles there were a significant amount of blowdowns. At the junction about 10 miles in, I headed up the Eureka Creek trail towards Shellrock Pass. Made it to Freds Lake without incident, but the trail up to the pass above Fred's was still covered in snow. I was able to scramble up the north side of the pass through some trees and rocks since I didn't bring any serious traction (just micros). I then made camp at Lake Doris, which had a decent amount of snow around. The campground was partially covered in snow, but I was able to find a decent spot.
The next day I got up early and scrambled up Osceola via the ridge north of Lake Doris. Nothing super notable, just some navigation of snowfields and ledges up to the base at 7500ft, and then a big talus scramble with some small sections of scree to the summit. I had originally planned to move my camp up the valley towards shellrock pass in order to scramble Lago and Carru, but on the way down from Osceola I tweaked my ankle a bit and decided to take it easy for the rest of the trip.
On the third day, I packed up camp at Doris and headed back out the way I came in. Coming back up the north side of Slate Pass was a bit frustrating as I kept post holing in the afternoon sun, but it is a fairly short traverse across the snowfield.
Comments