[Mike Collins]

We car camped at the trailhead for Phelps Creek and started the hike at 0640 on Tuesday. The goal of the day was to climb the highpoint of Spectacle Buttes coming in at 8392'. Our route was the Carne Mtn High Route which on the map would save us two miles of hiking each way. We made it to the summit of Carne in short order and had a brief water stop there. Then dropping NW we connected with the trail at the saddle there. I made an navigation error and ascended too soon to reach Ice Lakes. That cost us 1hr 10 min of time. We made it to the correct pass above Ice Lakes and hiked over to the outflow for the lakes. In looking at the rock we would have to ascend from the saddle it didn't look anything like what Beckey calls an "easy hike and scramble". We couldn't find one line that looked less than scary. We ascended the lower and easier NW Summit which comes in at 8070' reaching the top at 1410. Our turn around time for the peak was to be 1500 and it was apparent we did not have the daylight to scout out a route to the top of the taller summit. We decided to return to the car via the Leroy Creek route and reached the car at 1845. In the future I will return to the mountain but avoid the high route and take the Leroy Creek route with its connecting trail toward Maude and Ice Lakes. It is longer but one can make good time on it. To summit Spectacle Buttes would take about 13 hours roundtrip with few stops. A mountain bike ridden to the wilderness border would save about 1/2 hr travel time each way. The Ice Lakes area is quite beautiful in its own right, especially now with the larches aflame.