Leroy Creek High Route, Mount Maude, Ice Creek - Ice Lakes, Carne Mountain High Route & Carne Mountain — Sunday, Oct. 6, 2024

Wonderful 3 day tour of Mt Maude area, camps at Leroy Basin and Ice Lakes, exiting the Carne HR. The weather ranged from rain, snow, sleet to glorious sunshine. This area is very popular, for good reason, so will mainly focus on conditions and some photos.  

TL;DR;

• Larches:
  
  • High up ( e.g. ice lakes, carne summit ): 0-1 weeks to peak
  • Mid-level ( e.g. Leroy basin ): 1-2 weeks to peak
• Mount Maude: Straightforward, but long, walkup with amazing views
• Ice Lakes: Always beautiful, but even better in the snow/larches
• Carne HR: Pretty good shape except one section with loose rock
• Snow: 1/2" Leroy, 0-4" Ice Lakes. Melting fast past two days
• People:
  • Leroy: 5? parties
  • Ice Lakes: 15? parties ( but spread out over large area )
  • Carne HR: 20? parties
  • Carne Mountain: 100? people, majority day trippers
• Was wonderful to be joined by C, and picked up two new great friends, W & G, at ice lakes

ACCESS

• Most vehicles can probably make it slowly, but higher clearance preferred
• Chiwawa river road ( FS6200 ) is long.
  • First section is paved
  • Second section is unpaved, stony and wash-boarded in places
• Phelps Creek Road:
  • Surprisingly good shape thanks to recent grading and graveling of the worst spots

LEROY BASIN

• After the flats of Phelps Creek, tilts up steeply for the first half
• No real issues beyond couple easy blowdowns, but brush was drenching in the rain
• Basin has at least half dozen good sites, nestled under the watchful eye of Seven Fingered Jack
• Was a cold wet night as a front tore through, with 1/2" of snow
• Felt lucky though as folks at Ice Lakes got 40+mph winds
• Toilet vault ok, but the top could use a couple screws
• Various scramble plans abandoned due to WX, so after unfreezing our shoes, continued on...

LEROY TO FREEZER PASS

• Fairly straightforward
• Once reaching the pass before freezer pass, you can:
  • Traverse high under upper Maude cliffs, or do as we did...
  • Traverse into basin, then climb direct to pass
• Freezer pass is a wonderful reveal moment

FREEZER PASS TO MOUNT MAUDE

• Drop down a little, then ascend talus before hooking W to meet ridge at ~8140'
• Then follow open slopes to just before summit rocks
• Head for notch just left of summit, then wrap around for final summit
• Basically a long walk up, but...
• Oh my, what an amazing viewpoint!
  • Usual volcanoes, Buck, Dakobed, Chiwawas, Eastern WA, Entiat peaks, etc. etc.

ICE LAKES

• From Freezer pass easy slopes take you the scenic upper ice lakes
• Most camps are on the bluffs above the S shore, before the outflow cliff
  • Note map shows camp site E of outflow...
  • But most coming from Freezer camp W of outflow
• Popular spot, but there are plenty of campsites

LOWER ICE LAKES

• As C & W set off for a late ascent of S Spectacle, G and I did a tour of the lower ice lakes
• The hardest part is getting down off the bluffs to get to the Upper Lake outflow creek
  • There is a cairned gully on the NE part of the bluffs, but looked a little awkward with snow, so...
  • Was shown ( thanks! ) a non-obvious way on the E flank of the bluffs that ended in a class 2-3 ( depending on how tall you are ) move down a slot
• Once on the eastern shores, easy and beautiful ramblings before descending to lower Ice Lakes
• After walking around the stunning lower ice lakes, followed easy slopes SW up a broad valley
• Regaining the upper lakes is off trail:
  • At about 48.12674, -120.79470, followed easy, but loose rock gully, climber's left of outlet stream
  • At about 48.12741, -120.79534, an easy west trending gully pops you out at the top of the bluffs and level ground

CARNE HIGH ROUTE

• After a stunning sunset and sunrise, climbed back up to Freezer Pass, and started the Carne HR
• The first section has a short, but loose rock section, not difficult, but watch those below
• Next couple section have a couple places you may need to check the map, but otherwise straight-foward
• Last section is well established trail
• The hardest part is not constantly stopping to take yet more larch pictures

CARNE MOUNTAIN

• After ascending Carne's East flank, joined the crowds of day trippers
• Was busy, but everyone super friendly, and happily to be basking in larch-ness
• Couple blowdowns, one a tad awkward, others easy
• Stream running near Carne Basin Camp

Always amazed at how lucky we are to live in the PNW.