Climbed Crater Mt on Saturday. Crater Lake is mostly melted out and the campsites are dry. The climb from the lake is partially snow covered but I never needed crampons or ice axe. My casual review of trip reports before the trip indicated that the scramble near the top was easy to follow and straight forward. I managed to get lost partway up and wandered around looking for a "straight forward" route. I was admiring how the yellow lichen had formed a bullseye shape when it suddenly occurred to me that nature was trying to send me a message. Voila! A fun and easy class 3 route opened up in front of me. Unfortunately, the summit was in the clouds and I'll have to return to see the view.
After the climb I headed out to Devil's Park and set up camp. The scenery was beautiful through McMillan Park and Devil's Park. Patchy snow but the trail was easy to follow. My camp site was situated so that I could enjoy the sun setting in the northwest, making for a warm and pleasant evening.
Sunday I continued along the Jackita Ridge trail until I reached the ridge coming down from point 7,248. On the north side of the ridge I encountered several hundred feet of moderately steep and relatively hard snow (at 8 in the morning it was still shaded). It would have been a cakewalk with crampons and doable with an ice axe, both of which were back in camp. So I climbed the ridge to poiont 7248 and then ran the ridge out to the the official summit of Jackita Ridge (7,350). It wasn't the most pleasant scramble with some loose rock and clumps of thick vegetation. I dropped off the ridge to the west a few times to avoid the worst of it. After enjoying the views, I dropped down the slope back to the trail and continued north. At the next ridge I again encountered a steep slope on the north side and snow patches that were passable but not particularly enjoyable. Time to turn around.
The snow up to the ridge coming down from Point 7248 had softened and was easily climbed by 10:30. The rest of the hike out was quick and enjoyable.
30 miles round trip. I saw one person hiking out about 2 miles from the trailhead on Sat. morning and no one else the entire time. This is a beautiful area and easily accessible and I was surprised by the lack of people. I'll post pictures later.
Indeed a fine locale.
How was this creek? Hopefully it's subsided from 4 weeks ago.
Second creek crossing ( photo on our return) was scary enough for us to safeguard it. In this view the dropoff on the left is unseen.It is worse than this suggests, the kind where if you don't slip, what was the big deal? If you do slip, pick your poison: trauma, drowning, hypothermia, or combo.
Have the 20 or so trees on the trail been cut? WTA was just beginning sawing in late May.
Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
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Passing rocks and trees like they were standing still
The creek crossing was doable. Someone had placed a skinny log that helped out for those with a reasonable amount of balance. The 20 logs in the first two miles are still there. After that the trail is pretty good with minimal deadfall and brush.
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