My goal was to Summit Mt. Catherine from the Annette Lake TH. I was lazy this morning and ended up leaving later than I usually do.
The Annette Lake trail is in pretty good shape and has compact snow and ice continuously at about 2600ft. At 3300ft I left the trail (Silver Peak route) and headed up the slope. There is a bunch of scrub and low trees still uncovered by the snow. I'd say about 2.5 to 3 more feet of snow and the hillside will be much easier to navigate. The snow was pretty crunchy with snow drifts and I ended up putting my snowshoes on after a few hundred feet.
Once I got to the top, I headed East across Olallie Meadows to the base of Mt. Catherine. It is a pretty good haul, a mile and a half or so.
Mt Catherine was pretty snowy and untracked- it made for slow going. Around 2pm I was at 4500ft: about 500 vertical feet and 2/3 mile from the top. Two was my turn around time, so that was it. Total mileage 8.1, 3600vf.
It definitely would be easier to summit from the Hyak side.
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