[OutOfOffice]

I attempted to squeeze a witty reference into the title of this TR, but don't think it worked out as well as I originally thought. Anyway... On Friday night, Neek and I abandoned our original plan of going up Eldorado this weekend. Decided on Mt. Daniels instead. I've been meaning to get up this one for a while and Neek wanted to revisit after a 10-year absence. Saturday morning found Neek at my door at 6:30am. Per usual, I was running slow frying eggs whilst pondering my masochistic hobbies. The drive was uneventful. Despite having grown up in WA, I've somehow never been through Roslyn and Ronald. Nice looking towns! Lake Cle Elum and the Cle Elum river are beautiful as well. One of the more aesthetically pleasing trail head drive-ins I've done in a bit. The dirt road had some 4x4 moments, and a high(er) clearance vehicle is recommended for the final stream crossing. Plenty of people camping along the way. Took off from the car between 9:45am-10am.

The trail was largely snow covered for the first few miles. We cheated with a GPS. I admit it.

Squaw Lake

Great cloud play throughout the day

Stuart peaking out

Cathedral Rock. It was a bit annoying getting around it, but nothing too difficult with an ice axe.

Peg's pond. Took a break here. Boots were already soaked from the slush... need to get some new ones.

Started walking up into the bowl

We went up on the east side of the bowl. It was a long slog with the slushy snow.

Beware of the glacier worms. Vicious beasts.

True summit in sight

We topped out about 4:20pm (ohh yeaaaa) Neither of us were feeling too good (me in particular), so I'm proud we made it up at all. Need to give props to Neek for taking up the role of pace car.

The author

Summit view looking west.

Looking back at the summit. On our way down and looking forward to some extreme glissading.

melted out trail near the summit

Very fun glissade down. 4 hour slog up, 20 min slide down. Thanks gravity.

The highly technical "reverse selfie" shot.

More vicious creatures emerging from the melt. Luckily, I had my buck knife on me.

Cathedral again

Got back to the car about 8pm. Took advantage of the long day. Overall, it was a great trip and we got away with near-perfect weather conditions for the season. We stopped at the Old #3 in Ronald for some delicious burgers and beers. Looking forward to some more time in the mountains this summer!

[neek]

That was a really nice hike. A few tips for anyone heading out in the next few days: - Snowshoes and crampons make good training weight (ok, we did wear snowshoes for a while just to feel better about bringing them) - Sunscreen is meant to be applied before you get burned - Ice axe is effective against glacier worms but bear spray would have been better A few cell phone shots:

Squaw lake at 4872'

Going around Cathedral

Heading through the gap south of the east peak

Bit of a moonscape, if the moon had snow. Summit on left

Summit scramble

The other side

Various Snoqualmie-area peaks

Going down

Summit ridge bootpath

Fighting off iceworms

Cathedral above Peggys Pond

Summit photosphere (until I figure out how to embed it): https://photos.app.goo.gl/1XJQihpPtmexnm903

[awilsondc]

I like the title. Lol. Good looking trip! Daniel is a fun one.

[uww]

Nice one!

[Bootpathguy]

[OutOfOffice]

Thank you!

[HermitThrush]

What's so bad about the glacier worms?

[Bernardo]

Wow, cool trip. Thanks for the reoprt!

[Foist]