[raising3hikers]

Royal Mtn 7040' Pk 6520 6520' Two Buttes 6534' Three Aunts 7760' Freezeout Mtn 7744' I headed back up to Canada on Sat morning for another trip into the Northern Pasayten. Since my recon of last weeks Mt Winthrop trip, I had to choose another path to avoid the 1000's of blowdown along the Similkameen River trail. I had an idea and it worked out great. It took me less than 4 hours to reach Castle Pass, there was only snow the last couple hundred yards. The skies were getting gray as I did my best to find the snow covered Boundary trail. I found dry ground and then the trail and followed it around the South side of Royal Mtn. Once directly below the South rib, I dropped my pack and headed up 1000' to tag the summit. A few sprinkles started as did some distant sounds of thunder.

3Aunts Freezeout and Castle from just below Royal

Mt Winthrop

I headed back down as the light rain stopped, I grabbed my pack and continued towards Pk 5420. I walked right over the summit to keep on making progress as the skies were turning darker and more thunder was heard. I dropped down to the next saddle and went right back up the other side to the summit of Two Buttes. At the top, a loud crackle exploded from the sky right above me. I started to jog down the snowy slopes aiming for the tree covered saddle at 6133. The rain picked up as I quickly picked a spot to set my tent and not get too wet. i hopped in the tent and waited out about a 30 minute rain trying to figure out my next move. I had enough time left in the day for 3Aunts and Freezeout if the storm would go away. The rain stopped but the thunder was still heard from not too far away. I decided to just hang out, melt snow for water and have an early dinner. The rain started again as I eventually just went back in the tent for an early night. I had enough rest and was awake by 345am and decided to start hiking by 4am. The skies had mostly cleared and the snow was firm as I started along the long Eastern ridge line of Three Aunts. Since the alpine start, I found the sunrise to be especially nice!

sunrise!

Joker Mtn

mtns above the foggy valley

Things were good for a while but then the clouds came in and visibility was down to 100'. I kept moving along the ridge without much problem and found a summit. No views but I thought I was there. So I headed down the other side towards Freezeout and then ran into what I think is the real summit. I found a damp register left by Stefan from '07. It was too wet to write my name in there very well. I dropped down to the saddle with easy navigation and then started up towards Freezeout. The skies began to clear and I warmed up a bunch. the views were outstanding as I reached the summit.

Freezeout Mtn register

Three Aunts from Freezeout

Castle Mtn

I didn't stay too long at the summit, had to drop back down to the saddle and then up and over Three Aunts again. With my early start, I had enough time to get back to camp, pack up and hike out. So, it was up and over Two Buttes, then down to the Boundary Trail where I'd follow it to Castle Pass. The rest of the hike out was uneventful. I made it back to the TH by 330pm, happy with the successful trip.

Freezout Mtn

looking back up to Royal Mtn

40 miles 11400' elevation gain 2 days

[Gimpilator]

Beautiful. Nice to see a report for these peaks Eric.

[Stefan]

Long long long!!!!

[Fletcher]

A lot of ground covered to bag some rarely done peaks. Good stuff!

[cascadetraverser]

Nice report Eric; good job getting way in there so early!

[iron]

4 more. truly amazing. not that an arbitrary round number like t300 means anymore than 296, but you will certainly cement your legend as one of the top ten peakbaggers in WA history. quite a few difficult ones remaining. i recall we talked about needle and approaching it from a certain direction, but don't remember any more. looks like 2 ascents in the past 15+ years on that one. crazy to think that bear is probably your easiest remaining one!

[cascadetraverser]

Well said Iron, best of luck on the last 4 Eric!