Pasayten Wilderness scrambles

[larry savage]

One of the first backcountry areas in the northwest us to dry out is the pasayten wilderness.
I'm looking for partner to do a ul loop into horseshoe basin/boundary trail with the chance to scramble Catherdral Peak,Amphitheater and Apex Mountains. These are Washington State's 42,85,and 100th highest mountains which makes them a little higher then Santa Fe, New Mexico. About a 36 mile round trip to base camp plus a touch more for the scrambles which are grade 1 for the later two and grade 1+,class 4 for cathedral peak, late june or early july.
I can provide transportation from the central portion of the the state.

[Brian Lewis]

What kind of pace, total time are you thinking of? Not sure if I'm up to a class 4 — I assume you're thinking of free climb/scramble, not any sort of rope+belay approach.

Crampons + ice axe, or how bare do you anticipate things to be? Are you expecting to hike on a mix of snow and dry, or mostly dry trail at that point, perhaps snow just at the higher places like Apex and Cathedral passes?

Definitely interesting; I've lived in WA for over 20 years (Bellevue) and haven't gotten anywhere near the Pasayten wilderness.

Brian

[larry savage]

These are normally dry scrambles, take a look at the book Summit Routes by Stephenson/Bongiovanni at REI or Marmot for descriptions Brian.
My real goal is to get to horseshoe basin at upper cathedral lake, the peaks are totally optional.
This is described in the wilderness press book Don't Waste Your Time in the North Cascades by Copeland, trip 87.
Another destination would be Windy Peak [89th highest] which has a trail to the summit.
I couldn't give a dried fig about the climbing actually.it would be pretty tough to do on a weekend without running so
I'm guessing a 4 day trip, fri-mon, or whatever fits. By late summer most of the available water is the dried variety, take a look in the books and maps.

[Author]

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