I did the canonical loop of Mastiff and Howard via the Merritt Lake trailhead, however I would STRONGLY recommend the Rock Mountain trailhead option as a starting point because the old forest road to the Merritt Lake trailhead is in rough shape. My poor Corolla bottomed out a couple of times and the encroaching vegetation guarantees your car will get scratches.
The trail is in good shape until the intersection with the Nason Ridge trail. Some kind person chainsawed away some big blowdowns just recently from the looks of things. The turnoff for Mt. Mastiff is shortly after this intersection, and the initial ascent of the ridge "off-trail" (but not really because there's an obvious footpath) is lovely. But, there's a jagged ridge prior to the upper reaches that requires some unpleasant traversing. I stayed entirely on the right/Lost Lake/east side of the ridge when I deviated from the top. Once beyond this brief scary part the final climb to Mastiff is a walk-up.
The ridge connecting Mastiff to Howard also has some nasty bits, but this time when I deviated it was to the left/Canaan Lake/south side. In order to get around the trees near the saddle I had to go almost all the way down to the lake. From the saddle the climb up Howard is long but easy. In clear weather the views must be endless, but sadly it was socked in all day today (Mastiff, however, was sunny all day - apparently Howard is on the dividing line between the wet and dry side of the Cascades.)
Descending Howard I started almost straight south down the talus field until I got to the shelf above Crescent Lake (which was hidden by trees until I was almost on top of it, don't count on having it as a visual reference!). From there I tacked westward on the way down in order to avoid the cliff bands hidden in the trees. Once down to the lake I was back on the Nason Ridge trail again, but from Crescent Lake back to the Mastiff climbers' path it's in awful condition, overgrown in places and nonexistent in some of the meadows. At one point a blaze nailed to a tree was what helped me re-find the route. The only time I used my GPS all day was on the sanctioned trail!
Total time from car to Mastiff to Howard to Crescent Lake and back to the car was 9.5 hours, covering 13.5 miles and ~5,500' of total elevation gain after accounting for ups and downs. Don't do this as your first scramble but anyone who's comfortable with just a tiny bit of class 3 should be able to bag both peaks. Recommend doing Mastiff first because by far the steepest segment is the wall above Crescent Lake, which would've been much harder going up than down.
Comments