Ascents of Scout Patrol Peak and Bearscout Peak with the Mountaineers. We drove to the Hansen Creek TH without too much difficulty - the road has some potholes but is navigable right now by a 2WD vehicle. Snow on the road for the last 0.5 miles to the TH. The weather was fantastic all day - a rare PNW late fall bluebird day!
The route from Hansen Creek TH to Scout Patrol Peak is straightforward with snow-covered roads with currently firm crusty snow. We reached a fork at ~3800 ft with an overgrown trail to the left and the forest road continuing to the right - take the less obvious left fork for Scout Patrol Peak summit. This trail switchbacks up the gently sloped mountain to the summit. The view from the top has plenty of trees to block any panoramic view. Low avalanche risk right now with the lack of recent snow.
From Scout Patrol Peak, you descend to a forest road and follow it SE. After 0.5 miles, the road ends and an unmaintained trail skirts the Cedar River watershed for another 0.5 miles - make sure to stay left of the "No Trespassing" signs. Bearscout ascent was straightforward with snow scrambling to the summit. No ice axe is necessary if you stick to the wooded areas on the north face of the ridge, but the open, sunnier south face is wind loaded - we wished we had brought ice axes to ward away the bad juju here. Snow cover was about 6-24" on Bearscout proper. From the summit, you have views of the Cascade Volcanoes, and also views of Silver, Abiel, Chair Peak, Kaleetan, the Chikamin Ridge, and even Stuart.
Returning, we bushwhacked down a creek gully west of Scout Lake to the road back to Hansen Creek TH. I wouldn't recommend this descent as it required 0.5 miles of tiresome bushwhacking full of devil's club and requires 1.5 miles of road walking. The gpx is available at the Peakbagger link below for any interested. In the future, I would definitely just out and back over or around Scout Patrol as this bushwhack was tiring and wet.
On our return to Hansen Creek TH, we met lots of families bundling up Christmas trees on their SUVs while kids sledded down the hills - a proper holiday scene to end this beautiful day in the mountains!
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