Went up to Mineral Butte with a friend this Sunday as a back-up choice for something closer to home and what seemed to be a straightforward trip (but not really haha).
Started just before 8 AM and parked the car almost at the bottom of Salmon Creek rd, before the road barrier, approx. at 47.89317, -121.44765.
At first, we followed the old logging road, and after about half a mile, we decided to just cut the switchbacks by going through the forest. The route we picked was not that great, with tons of slippery moss and blowdowns. We followed the road again and tried to cut the switchbacks at some point only to find similar conditions. Not sure if we were that bad at routefinding or if the route was only good if there's enough snow coverage.
Consistent snow started at around 2,800ft. Put on snowshoes at around 3,200ft and broke the trail all the way to the summit. Snow conditions were mixed but mostly wet and heavy.
The last 200 ft to the summit was like a steep, open terrain. Most of the boulders were covered in snow but we tried to stay close to the trees as much as we could. Should have swapped the snowshoes with spikes and took our ice axes out but snowshoes worked with some awkward moves on the steeper part of the slope.
Summit view was very gorgeous! Great view of Del Campo, Vesper, Columbia, Spire Mountain, Hubbard, etc. I actually didn't expect the view would be this great as I wasn't that excited to do this trip in the first place 🙃.
On the way down the slope, it felt even more awkward with snowshoes. So we took them off and took our ice axes out. We glissaded a part of the slope with a good runout and triggered what appears to be a very small wet loose avalanche.
And for the rest of the trip, we decided to just stick to the road because we couldn't take anymore bushwhacking 🙃. The road wasn't the best either with all the overgrown (almost tripped over a few times from overgrown weed/grass and got shwacked by all those slide alders).
Overall, a great and a beautiful day out but it took way longer than expected. Stats: A little over 11 mi RT, 10 hours total time, 4,100ft gain total, leisurely pace.
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