Buckhorn Mountain — Friday, May. 31, 2024

Enjoyed a hike up through Marmot Pass to Buckhorn Mt.  Hit and miss hard packed snow/ice along with dirt trail from Camp Mystery to Marmot Pass, I used poles going up, but my teenage partner had no issues without.  From Marmot Pass going up to Buckhorn it was all melted out, but were you turn heading up the hillside to Buckhorn challenges your legs and lungs.  Coming down instead of dealing with slipping & sliding on the lose rock on the steep slope we took a trail heading NW about at Lat 47.823180 Lon 123.128597 (you have to look closely for it but once found easy to follow). It gave a more gradual though longer decent that eventually took us back to the Tubal Cain trail where we turned back towards Marmot Pass.  But on this section, we did run into a fair amount of snow covering the hillside & trail, it had a very slight/old boot path.  We found our feet sliding down the hillside, so we put on traction devices which helped a lot & got us back without any incident to Marmot Pass.