Crystal Mountain Loop (Silver Queen), Crystal Mountain Loop (The Throne) — Saturday, Jun. 26, 2021

I got finished early with Chinook Peak, et al, and was looking for something else to do instead of go back home and roast and needed to go to the bathroom. “So, why not Crystal Mountain?”, I thought. It was a good call, but there were some shenanigans that ensued.

I rode the gondola to save time (and I wasn’t looking forward to walking up an exposed hill in the hot sun). Good choice, but a bit pricy ($37). Oh well… it was less than a lift ticket and worth the time/comfort 🚡!

Got up to Summit House quickly, then walked down Lucky Shot towards Silver Queen. Before I got to the corner I noticed there was a bootpath that went along the west side of Silver Queen. I went up the ridge and noticed there with a rusty placard (kind of looked like it belonged to NPS). It wasn’t on the MapBuilder Topo or USFS layers on CalTopo, so I assumed it was unmaintained.

There was some tricky steep snow I had to negotiate in trail runners, but it wasn’t all that bad. I just made sure to scuff step my way across the snow and hop back on the old trail once I got to the other side.

On the south side of Silver Queen, the beat up trail forked. I took the left fork, which went up. Lots of steep sidehilling ensued for 300’ until I got to the SE ridge, but it wasn’t too bad, apart from the steep loose scree in areas and sand.

I followed the SE ridge (climber's right) up to Chair 6, then climbed the extra 10’ to get to the top of Silver Queen. There’s a placard at the top memorializing a former snow ranger (kind of interesting/novel). The view was pretty good from here, but the lift blocked views of Sourdough Gap, et al (kind of a bummer since Silver Queen is so high up and so accessible).

The way over to The Throne involves an easier ridge traverse following game trails and an old boot path. It’s best to stay high to avoid steep scree sidehilling (speaking from experience since I pushed down a wee bit too low in spots :D).

The views from The Throne were really nice: I really liked how Pahto was framed by Silver King and Chinook Peak 😊.

I knew getting down wasn’t going to be easy, so I tried something different and went straight down Silver Queen towards Campbell Lodge. REALLY BAD IDEA. I had to descend 700’ over loose scree and deal with loose talus/boulders. If I could redo the hike I wouldn’t have done that at all and gone back the way I'd come. I was REALLY tired though, wasn’t thinking, and by the time I checked the slope angle, I'd committed down a bit too much. I got down to Campbell Lodge though, then hopped on the forestry road.

The rest of the hike involved walking out the road, which I found really novel since the area looks so much different without snow (I’ve snowboarded at Crystal many times in the past). The trees and heather smelled really good too.

I did a bit under 1k’ gain. A fun end to my hiking this weekend, given that the next 2 days are going to be insanely hot.

The upsides were the wildflowers, butterflies, sweeping mountain vistas, and the whistling marmot off in the distance. The downsides were the stupid shenanigans I got into, and the trash I found (I cleaned it up though, so less trash on the ridge!).

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.peakbagger.com/climber/ascent.aspx?aid=1690606