[Tim Hagan]

Our party of three decided to attempt puzzlr's Mount Kent loop in the reverse direction. We had no problem finding and ascending the road described in his account. We noticed the same evidence of previous visitors along the way.

This sign became meaningful for us later when we realized that, no matter how bad the going got, going forward would be much easier than returning the way we had come.

After reaching the end of the road (across the valley and due east of Kent's summit), an unfortunate accident occurred. Upon throwing his pack to the ground, the senior member of the party broke one of the two beer bottles inside. He lamented the loss of the beer more than the beer-soaked contents of his pack. Of course, he smelled like a brewery for the rest of the trip, which was not necessarily a bad thing.

An inadvertent sacrifice to the mountain gods.

The weather consisted of low clouds all day, making route finding difficult. We praised the little man on my Garmin GPS for successfully leading the way to the saddle SW of Mt Kent's summit. We were not so happy that he led us through thorny thickets of dense brush and up interminable talus slopes.

Avalanche debris in upper Alice Creek.

Heading towards thick brush ...

... and talus.

We reached the summit in exactly 4 hours. The view looked a lot like the inside of a cloud.

The final pitch.

Relaxing on the summit of Mt Kent.

On returning to the saddle, we discovered a steep forested slope dropping off to the west, so we traversed back north under the summit and descended the NW ridge before angling down towards Alice Lakes. More dense bush-whacking brought us to the service road, which was followed towards McClellan Butte. A short climb up more talus brought us to the trail. Then it was a cruise back to the car. There was only one tricky gully crossing on the McClellan Butte trail. It required a short but awkward jump off a snow remnant into the stream bed. An ice axe proved useful for this maneuver. Reversing the move would be difficult and might require a lot of chopping.

Crossing one of the snow chutes on the McClellan Butte trail.

And finally, a couple of flowers ...

Wood nymphs (Moneses uniflora) are pretty common along the McClellan Butte trail.

Davidson's penstemon (Penstemon davidsonii var. menziesii) near the summit of Mt Kent.

[puzzlr]

Wow, most of the snow has melted out since I was there. Were the Alice Lakes melted out?

[wildernessed]

You'd have thought puzzlr would have packed out his trash !

[Tim Hagan]

[Tim Hagan]