Sauk Mountain — Monday, Jun. 9, 2025

Definitely a little early in the season for the summit. Road is snow free, but has some absolute craters in it to navigate. Hike is snow-free throughout the switchbacks and up to the south summit, with beautiful with flowers all the way up. The North summit was an "experience" to say the least. Trekking poles and/or microspikes are definitely reccomended, but we did manage to get it done with neither. The snow crossings were very steep, and a fall would likely result in a "fun" 1,000+ foot slide down into Sauk Lake. The way out at 12:00ish was fine, nothing too unstable, but once 2:00 rolled around the snow quickly melted resulting in a slushy ice-fest that was in parts "very sketchy" to say the least. We spent about an hour crossing the snow field on the way back, having to cut and pack a stable trail the entire way. There is some exposed scrambling up to the main peak which might make an inexperienced climber second guess their life decisions, but otherwise nothing that bad. We also saw some Wolverine tracks in the snowfield which was really cool. Safe to say we got everything we bargained for and a whole lot more.