My friend and I decided to check out Ruth Mountain on a beautiful sunny Monday. We arrived at the trailhead around 8:30 a.m. and found only two other vehicles there. The trail was mostly snow-free almost all the way to the Hannegan Pass fork, with just a couple of stream crossings that weren’t too bad.
We geared up with crampons and gaiters once we hit continuous snow. If you’re skiing, that’s probably where you’d throw on skins, but personally I was glad I left my skis behind yesterday — at this point, the labor-to-reward ratio didn’t feel worth it.
The approach past the Hannegan fork was very steep, and with the soft snow, progress uphill was slow. It took us much longer to reach the summit than we had anticipated, but we ended up having the entire summit to ourselves. The gorgeous 360° views from the top felt like a real reward.
We encountered a strange strong smoke coming out the bushes on the steep slope, didn’t see any people camping there and we thought it was a weird to camp anyways.
total movement time little over 9 hrr, my garmin clocked in 13.4 miles
Comments
Gorgeous day! Did you happen to report the potential wildfire? I’m just worried with the already low snowpack this year the potential for fire season to start super early 🫠
Posted by:
Veronica84 on May 12, 2026 03:27 PM
It looked more like a human presence but I’m not sure because when we got back to the trailhead, we did not see any vehicles
Posted by:
adventurelover on May 12, 2026 05:59 PM