[b00]

mutchler+snowking+found pt aka5791 5-27 - 5-29-2017

would you steal someone's water? while heading from mutchler to snowking, we saw a couple folks summit snowking and descend. when they descended, instead of walking by our camp, they spent some time going through it. huh? whatever, we just continued on toward the summit of snowking. earlier in the day, matt had put in some nice steps in the snow to the summit of snowking. i wondered if those two had thrashed the steps on their descent. to our pleasant surprise, they were very courteous and left the up-steps intact - cool. after a couple of strenuous days, we had a very pleasant time relaxing on the top of snowking. since we had been melting snow, for our water and we weren't sure how much fuel we had left, i headed back to camp to get going on using the sun to melt snow for our water, in hopes of conserving fuel. in the morning we had left behind 3.5 liters half full of water/ half of snow, to melt in the sunlight. i expected to find 3.5 liters of water, but instead found 2 liters untouched and 1.5 liters emptied :<( were they rude thieves? i am not sure. they did leave the steps in above. they could have taken all the water. the only thing i could guess is that they were extremely inexperienced and had run out of water, either because they did not know how to use the sun to melt snow with their water or ??? they could easily have taken a little out of each bottle and re-filled them with snow and we would not have an issue - we would never have known. so they were either stupid, inexperienced, lazy or selfish. my guess inexperienced. your thoughts?

quick and dirty route info: drive the cascade river road ~14 from marblemount, turn right on fr1570(signed)drive(easily handled by a subaru) to where the road is blocked. follow trail up to kindy ridge, walk snow s along ridge. either going up and 5791 aka found, or traversing high on w side(be careful of huge holes), continue on past a camp at tarn 5442 and past camps at cyclone lake(pass on the e side) and then attain snowking's e ridge. take e ridge(camp at 6300' no water or few hundred feet higher) to summit. from a few feet below snowking summit, begin traverse s, staying east of the ridge crest and dropping below rock features when needed all the way to mutchler summit. no register found on either peak.

what a great memorial day weekend. this all was a last minute plan matt and yana put together. we did not even decide what were going to do until we reached camp. hey, we were not even sure where exactly we would camp. i suggested a flat spot at 6300' on the east shoulder of snowking that i had noticed on a previous trip. yana wanted to camp on the summit(bad idea). matt wanted to camp just a few hundred feet higher(would have been equally good or better). our 6300' foot camp proved to be spectacular - ground so flat colin and i did not need a shovel to level the snow for our tent site, large comfortable, dry spot on nearby rocks for dinner. after dinner we discussed our options. matt and yana wanted to do a loop trip to the north, i was ok with that, although i personally wanted to do mutchler. problem was, there was not enough time to do both ideas. matt and carla had done mutchler before. carla loved it and wanted to return. matt was not so hot about it. yana wanted to do the loop. matt suggested we split up, matt and yana would do the loop and the rest of us would do mutchler. what a considerate idea. problems needed to be solved. everyone but yana had ridden with me, so we had to figure out what to do with their stuff. also tenting. matt and carla were sharing a tent. seeing that this could mess things up, carla, ever the team player, piped up and said she'd be glad to do the loop. funny how easy it is to solve issues when nice people are involved, and you can't get nicer people than matt, carla, yana and colin. that first night, yana and carla woke us up so we could catch the northern lights - aurora!!!! thanks! we split up just below snowking as colin and i turned our attention to mutchler - the snow getting over there provided us a pretty good workout and ended up taking us quite a bit of time. the summit and the views on the traverse were marvelous. being roped up on the glacier definitely slowed us. although there were no crevasses fully visible, with the soft snow, we just did not want to risk falling in. it is hard to express how beautiful the camp we had was and just spending time going up snowking and mutchler was awesome!!! yes, 1.25 liters of water mysteriously disappeared, but a great weekend in the sun and mountains was had by all :>) day 1 9.68mi 6198' gain 10:46 car to camp day 2 6.38mi 2576' gain 4:56 camp to mutchler summit 0:40 summit stay 3:24 mutchler summit to snowking summit (including 0:35 lunch break) 0:38 summit stay 0:36 snowking summit to camp 10:13 camp to camp day 3 8.1mi 970' gain 5:44 camp to car whole trip 24.16mi 9744' gain equipment: ice axe, 30m rope, harness equipment brought, but not used: crampons

[MtnGoat]

Fantastic trip! Awesome pics. Where did the snow start? Real dirty pool on the water. Bad juju to touch a single thing in someone else's camp, let alone take water.

[raising3hikers]

very cool! that sounds like a great trip, glad you tagged mutchler

[wildernessed]

I keep thinking I need to do that trip again the area and views are so terrific. Is the video shot at slower speed to get those effects ?

[Backpacker Joe]

Im planning on heading back in there this September. Wonderful trip you guys.

[Stefan]

water weird. pics great!

[Distel32]

[awilsondc]

Great set of photos! I'm going to have to keep this one in mind! Beautiful!

[mbravenboer]

Excellent photos! Such a beautiful mountain. Maybe a thirsty bear walked by?

[cascadetraverser]

Great trip!! Nice you got to see the northern lights. Don`t think I have ever had my water stolen, this is the northwest after all....

[Matt]

[Brushbuffalo]