Overnight at Lake Edna, with climbs of Grindstone Mt and Cape Horn from 9/16-17.
The road to Chatter Creek TH was in good shape and suitable for all vehicles. There were no facilities at the TH, but there was an outhouse just a short way further down the road opposite the Ranger Station.
We signed in and filled out a free permit and headed up the Chatter Creek trail. The trail started out pretty mellow at a very gradual incline through the woods, before steepening and climbing. We crossed Chatter Creek without any issue and kept following the trail up the valley. The trail was overall in good shape with no major obstacles, but did get rough and rocky as we climbed up towards the pass.
It was pretty exposed and hot once we emerged from the woods for the section of climb to the pass. I think it was about 4000' of gain from the TH to the pass. I'm not sure I remember any solid water sources past the Chatter Creek crossing and before we got closer to the lake (we did come across at least one small trickle on the way to the pass, but nothing flowing strong)
Once we crested the pass, we dropped down on the other side (around 400' down) and walked through a larch-filled basin before making the final climb to Lake Edna (another 500' up). Some larches were yellow, but lots of them were still in the early stages of turning.
There was one large group set up at the lake with 5 tents, and one other duo that showed up later, but overall the trail was pretty quiet. We set up camp on a flat spot above the lake (no camping allowed within 200' of the lake) and took an alpine power nap. As evening fell, we decided to take a short sunset climb up Cape Horn (about 500-600' vertical from the lake). The trail was easy to follow to the pass above the lake, and from there a climber's trail led to the small rocky summit. It did get pretty steep and loose, but was a great spot to see the sun go down.
The winds were whipping fiercely overnight - definitely stake your tent well and guy it out if camping here! We snoozed a little to make up for the lack of peaceful slumber and got a late start leaving camp at around 10 a.m. the next morning. We retraced our steps to where the trail switchbacked at 6555' and left the trail there, traversing towards Grindstone. We stashed most of our gear on the hillside and headed across the slope.
We opted to stay on the East side of the ridge, following the description on the Mountaineer's site saying to ascend to 100 feet below the saddle, and then head left for a gully to bench on ridge at 7,370 ft. We actually managed to pick up a bootpath that took us most of the way up to the ridge through heather and bushes, before turning more rocky/sandy/loose.
We crossed over the ridge, and the bootpath took us down a steep, rocky descent to the edge of a boulder field. We picked our way over it, boulder-hopping and slab-walking to the summit block, where we did a final easy scramble to the top (I'd say you shouldn't need to deal with anything more than class 2+ on this route). We enjoyed the views, signed the summit register, and then retraced our steps to head back out, topping off our adventure with a bear sighting on the way down!
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