[Randy]

This one starts along the upper MFK road at 1320'. Treen is a seldom visited peak that offers up a commanding vantage point to a less traveled area of the MFK Snoqualmie drainage. Looking back on the day and how I my knees feel right now this one may have not been the best choice just a day and a half after my death march down Toketie Canyon, another knee buster that doesn't mess around. Anyhow, I set off up the steep hill toward Green Ridge Lake making respectable time up the deliberate miners trail. I crested the ridge at 4680' and then wandered over a few bumps until I came to Lake 4662'. Here my target was in plain view just a ridgeline and lake basin away. I wandered across a grassy meadow to the west and then down a steep watercourse toward the upper Garfield Mountain Lake. I dropped to 4300' where I initiated a traverse counter-clockwise around the lake. I ended up having to drop to 4180' to avoid various cliff bands, but the route goes well enough. I should note that the duff slopes through here and along much of the route from Lake 4662' to the summit of Treen are steep and don't give an inch. I used my ice axe on several occasions to pseudo-arrest my way down some of these slopes. Someone is going to walk through here and wonder what the heck all the deep gashes in the hillside are from, but whatever works. About midway across the main part of the upper Garfield Mountain Lake, I trended up and to the north to avoid cliffs. I continued this ascending traverse all the way to Charlie Brown Lake (~4390') which offers up a good view of the route necessary to gain the summit of Treen. From Charlie Brown, I took to the SE slopes of the mountain working through various cliff bands and more duff slopes until I came to a broad talus field at roughly 4850'. Here I angled left up an obvious gully with some grassy slopes at its head. The gully took me to 5400' and immediately shot me out onto the more south facing slopes of the mountain. The last few hundred feet to the top were on easy, but steep heather slopes. It took 4 hours to summit from the car. Noteworthy views from the summit included those of Garfield, Big Snow Mountain, Dream Lake and the seemingly small Otter Slide. No summit register was found, just an old USGS maker nailed to an old wooden stake. I built a small summit cairn and placed the maker and stake at its center. After an hour on top, (a lot of it searching for the register which I was certain was there) I descended (and ascended) my same route with several more ice axe moves on duff thrown in for good measure. The steep route straight down 3000' to the MFK road was much more painful than it needed to be. The old knees screamed the entire time, but I finally made it back to the car 9 hours after I had started.

[Randy]

A shot of Otter Falls/Slide from the summit on a 4x zoom.

[Dave Weyrick]

Randy, At the risk of sounding like a broken record.....were the Garfields and Charlie Brown thawed out?

[polarbear]

That's a great bird's eye shot of otterslide falls. I was wondering what it looked like above the falls. It looks pretty steep.

[Randy]

Dave - Both lakes were 100% thawed. I feel comfortable in saying that both lakes are fishless or darn close and that's not bogus information. I spent a little time at both trying my luck and saw nothing. CB is one of those lakes without an outlet and a couple minor trickles for inlets. It's got that stagnant, unpleasant look to it.

[Backpacker Joe]

I've seen BIG fish at BOTH Garfield Mtn lakes! They are NOT fish-less! TB

[Randy]

Really trolling the old reports, aren't ya!

[Backpacker Joe]

Not me. P-bear forwarded this baby! I just had to chime in on it! I know you fisher-men types don't like people to say stuff like that! Heaven forbid we tell the truth about fish in lakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! TB

[Tom]

BPJ, how many years ago were you there? Maybe the BIG fish you refer to have gone to the BIG fish bowl in the sky.