Mount Pugh #644

B&T began at the trailhead 9am - low clouds (i.e. 6,000 ft and above) suggested not much of a view.

The trail up the lake is fully wooded - ran into one person there. Continued up to the end of the maintained trail at the foot of the rock field. Continued up to Stujack Pass where snow became apparent.

Not having been up this way before, we were still able to figure out the trail underneath the snow. A few yards beyond the pass we brought out our ice axes and continued up a snow field that we could see covered the normal trail. Over the first ridge and we came upon the glacier basic area.

Following previous snow tracks, we spent about a third of our time on the snow, the other two thirds on the trail on the ridge. Soon we hit the summit block and continued to follow the trail up. Three times we had to cross snow fingers with no way to see the run out below - however the snow was consolidated and stable so we continued.

Made the summit by 12:30pm with nothing to see - a bit of a let down after having viewed the summit from so many other places!

We headed down after a brief lunch - and got back by 4pm seeing two others on the trail. All-in-all, with good ice axe skills a really wonder day - some challenge but nothing dangerous.

With warm weather or more rain should be all clear within a month or so.