Mount Daniel, Peggy's Pond, Nosh Nosh Wahtum & Cathedral Rock — Sunday, Jul. 9, 2017

The road was real bumpy but manageable in just about any car.  There is a stream ford that I would recommend a higher clearance vehicle for but we saw some sedans that made it the whole way to the trailhead.

I'll break this down according to the different trails listed on WTA:

Squaw Lake

The trail to Squaw lake was a bit wet requiring a bit of rock hopping just after the trailhead, but nothing terrible.  There were a few blowdowns but nothing to hard to surmount (and we were carrying 40+ lb packs with skis sticking off of them...). The area around the lake is fully melted out and looks like it offers some awesome camping.

Cathedral Rock

After you pass Squaw lake the trail begins to climb further and is in a bit worse condition.  More water flowing down the trail and a couple of blowdowns requiring searching for the trail on the other side.  Again nothing horrendous.  In addition there are intermittent patches of snow on the trail with some running water. I post-holed through one of them.  Stuff to watch out for but not overly dangerous.

Peggy's Pond

Past the turn off to Peggy's pond the trail becomes less of a trail and requires a bit of easy scrambling and screen traverses. Few Snow patches left but easy enough to pass in trail runners.  The pond itself is not fully melted out but it's getting there.  Plenty of snow surrounding too, a few dry tent pads but not many.  Also, LOTS OF BUGS.

Mount Daniel

Our goal was climbing and skiing Mount Daniel, so we pushed past the pond to bivy high on the mountain (and avoid the bugs).  We took the Hyas Creek 'glacier' drainage and ascended a snow couloir below the east summit.  It will probably still go for awhile.  Our original plan was to pass under the spire on the North East ridge of the East peak to gain the Daniel Glacier but there were cracks that would've made the skiing annoying.  Instead we headed up the standard route to the summit of the east peak.  We found a flat spot ~200ft below the summit to bivy on and there were even 2 other skiers bivied on the summit.  We enjoyed a run in the evening off the east peak summit for ~600 ft.   The sunset/sunrise from high on the mountain was spectacular.  The next morning we traverse to the middle and west peaks using crampons and axes on some steep snow traverses and then booting the snow & screen once it warmed up.  After hanging out on the west (true) summit we skied a few hundred feet down the east face and then headed back over to the Daniel Glacier for the money run of the day, 1500ft of uninterrupted fall line skiing with 0 crevasses (we had glacier gear to be safe but it was chill).  After that we headed SE up a couloir off the east ridge of Daniel. From the top we were able to ski our up track more or less back to Peggy's Pond.

Stats: 17mi, ~7k gain ~4k of skiing

GPS track linked below

More Information on this Trip Report

• https://www.gaiagps.com/datasummary/track/360971e4096b73f4d1118b33f45f3094739f68ee/?layer=CalTopo