[Fletcher]

Consolation prize #1 for deciding to bail on our Sawtooth Traverse; Dave, Reed, JakeA, Kyle, and I were able to get all the way to the end of the spur road 500 in Goat Creek on Friday night. There were a couple down logs that we were able to drag to the side of the road with Jake's Tacoma. We were all up before dawn and began our hike at 5:30. The unofficial trail up Goat Creek was snowfree for a mile or so. The thin snow cover that followed through the burn was kinda lame but not too bad. Shortly after passing by where we camped on a February trip where we only had time to do Sunrise, we were lured away from our planned route by a large, open, melted out slope above us. It looked good on the topo, so we went for it. Kyle got a bit ahead of the pack and saw 3 wolves traverse the slope above him. Either that, or he had one too many puffs before leaving the trailhead. We didnt hit consistent snow until 7k!

heading for Sherman

nice, efficient travel

another nice morning

We reached the 7000 ft bench SW of the summit and had to contour north around some cliffy terrain into the drainage west of our peak. From there, we had great camponing conditions up to just below the summit. Amazingly, we could see the remnants of a skin track that we believe was set by Fred N and Eric G on their trip from this winter!

short traverse

nice conditions

Dave and Kyle up front

Getting up high on the mountain, there was some brief confusion as to where the summit was. The guys up front got slightly off route, resulting in a little spicey-ness for Dave. Once we figured where the summit was, we exited snow and scrambled easy choss to the summit of Sherman at 9:45. Excellent views.

getting back on route

Kyle topping out

summitshot

After a lengthy summit stay, we headed out. Great plunging conditions.

Copper Glance Mountain

dropping with Sunrise Peak

Dave coming down

We took the standard route down into Goat Creek. From there, Kyle and I hiked out to the car in the heat. It was a bit of a slog even though it was only 3 miles. Dave, Reed, and Jake climbed Sunrise (Kyle and I already had it) and we met them in the Methow later on. Nice peak!

hiking down through the burn

~9.5 miles ~3700 ft of gain

[MangyMarmot]

A couple more cool peak. It's amazing how much easier things are in May than in February. It was good to come back and tag these. Here are some photos.

Sunrise near sunrise

Cramponing up Sherman

Sunrise

Craggies

McLeod and Bullhorn

Heading down Sherman

Postholing up Sunrise

Arriving at the summit

Sherman from Sunrise

Hiking out through the burn