[Paul M]

Silas W, Don B, Carla S, and I teamed up to climb Hozomeen Mountain during a narrow weather window this past weekend. The conditions on summit day were as good as could be. But make no mistake. This is a serious mountain! Not because the climbing is overly difficult. But because of the nature of the rock it is impossible to protect. Prior reports mention 30-100 feet for the steepest class 4 section where you first gain the NW ridge…. It sure felt like at least 100 feet. After that the angle of the route does lessen but the exposure is still immense. I also can’t say enough by how accurate the MM5 forecast was this weekend. It called for light rain Friday night (which we had at our car camp); solid overcast on Saturday with clearing starting about 3pm (which it did just as we neared camp on the ~6,400 ft summit just before the boarder). Sunday morning dawned completely clear with perfect temps and stunning views into the pickets and beyond. By the time we started our drive back home the clouds were thick and by 11pm it was raining hard, accompanied by thunder and lightning just for good measure. All in all this was a great trip and a great summit shared. Way to go Silas Postscript. The window for this climb seems to be pretty narrow but we were still a bit surprised to see another party of three people arrive at our camp sometime after we had set up. They graciously granted us a head start in the morning so we could minimize any potential congestion on the route.

Horse camp near Trail Head

Raeburn from upper Ross lake at dusk

Hozomeen looming like Mordor

Westy camping convention

Trail junction

Afternoon clearing views from camp

Perfect morning dawning on Hozomeen

Our route in full view and great condition

Monument 74

Getting closer to our objective

Silas leading the way

Typical rock quality in route

Happy to be on the summit

Jack Mountain from Hozomeen

Looming South Hozomeen from summit

All safely down form the peak

Another climber starting to descend the middle snowfleld

Boarder swath looking west

Our tracks in the snow visible from camp

One last view of Hozomeen from the long deproach trail

[Brushbuffalo]

Well done, lady and gents!

[nordique]

Silas probably is a bit older than you!

[canadug]

Nice. Did you start from Hozomeen campground? We did it starting from Manning Park and all in a very long day. Here is a link to our TR: Hozomeen

[Brushbuffalo]

[Paul M]

[Mike Collins]

Driving in from the north on Silver Creek road is an oddity. You are in Canada on a road and then you are in the United States without going through any official border crossing with immigration. I wonder how long that is going to last.

[canadug]

That crossing is a strange one.....The Border Dudes are flying drones and helicopters all along the 49th parallel and busting people at the old PCT crossing at Manning. Weird times

[canadug]

What do you think the total distance of your journey was via Skyline II?

[Paul M]

[cartman]

Nice one, Paul. That's a serious but fun mountain in a fantastic setting. Looks like you had very similar conditions as on our trip five years ago. Seems like most people do it end of June. We ran into other climbers too. Fortunately Dave and Crispin had camped at the border swath so were a bit ahead of us on the route and we only ran into them as they were descending the highest snowfield.

[canadug]

Our route on Skyline I then Skyline II was about 24 miles (40Km's) return and ~10,000 ft elevation......Seems like both routes are quite similiar. Super long day either way.

[mountainflamingo]

It was great to chat with you along the way and I'm glad we managed to mostly stay out of each others way on a difficult route. I got a few photos of your crew while we were out there. It was also great to meet you again Carla!

I did a little write up of our experience on Hozomeen, but probably not worth a new post. https://mountainflamingo.com/2018/06/26/2018-06-23-24-hozomeen-mountain/

[Matt Lemke]

Oh wow! Now I'm jealous!!