Beautiful day up to Mt. Daniel via Peggy's Pond and Hyas Creek Glacier. Camped out at Tucquala Meadows trailhead the night before with my climbing buddy, Andrew Wilson. Woke up at the crack of dawn and started up at 6am, expecting a long day. Nice, moderate trail up to ridge crest, then easy traverse past Squaw Lake and some dried up ponds to base of Cathedral Rock. What a spectacular monolith! Didn't see any mosquitos the entire way. Took a left at Crest Trail and then joined the Peggy's Pond climber's route (some dicey sections if you have a full pack--a couple of fallen trees to negotiate, too). Arrived at Pond in 2 hrs. It's a beautiful emerald jewel underneath Cathedral Rock itself, but the entire area is extremely fragile...there are many trails that scour the meadows leading all over. Kind of unsightly. Just head west on the main climber's trail towards Hyas Creek Basin, a route very well marked by rock cairns all the way to the glacier. Follow the creek, essentially. Highly reccommend going straight up the basin instead of the SE ridge. There's soft snow (ice axes, but no crampons), and a well-beaten route to the base of the East Summit. Pretty narrow trail to Middle Summit, and views of alpine lakes and faraway peaks are distracting enough! Made the summit in 4 hours, 15 minutes. NOTE: NO PAPER IN REGISTER AT TOP! Could someone please replenish' Spent a couple hours sunbathing and looking at Glacier Peak/Bonanza/Mt. Maude to the north, the magnifient horn of Mt. Stuart to the east, and Mt. Rainier/Mt. Adams to the south. Wonderful, yet very long, day!

The Alpine Lakes - The trail to Peggy's pond is free of snow and in good condition, with only a few small muddy sections. Took about 3 1/2 hours from trailhead to Peggy's Pond. Fantastic meadows just below Cathedral Pass. The trail from the Pass to Peggy's Pond is a narrow traverse. Lots of mosquitoes at the pond. The Pond area has two vault toilets, both with fantastic views. The toilet to the south was in poor repair. Next morning, we took the route up the ridge to the left of the upper basin, which has a more-or-less distinct climber's track. Some patches of snow along the ridge. A snow traverse just below the East Summit was straightforward, but the traverse from the East Summit to the Middle Summit was steep and had some exposure in places. We didn't use a rope or crampons and didn't have a problem, but an ice axe is mandatory. Fantastic views of all the volcanoes and Mt. Stuart. The ridge route is a little longer than the direct route up the basin, but it still only took four hours from Peggy's Pond to the summit. Peggy's Pond is a very fragile high alpine area, with a number of campsites and companion trails closed for reforestation. We were appalled to see a group of 8 climbers, too many for one campsite, just set up camp in one of the meadows and proceed to shortcut on closed trails and directly through the heather on their way to the toilets. AARGH. This area filled up quickly on Saturday, so be prepared to camp on snow in the upper basin above the pond. Another example of these poor mountain meadows being loved to death.

Wow... what a difference a week can make. We saw the trip report from a week before we did this trail and were expecting more snow than we found! The trail is pretty much snow free. There are patches here and there just below Cathedral Pass, but no problem keeping track of the trail. Squaw lake is melted out. Most of the little lakelets along the ridge top are melted out, as well as the mosquitos! They weren't ferrocious, just annoying. Deep lake appeared completely thawed and the waterfalls coming down the mountainside into it are spectacular. There is still some water on the trail near the top, but it's nothing to do with trail construction... just too much water with no place to go! We stayed the night at Peggy's Pond; the path over there is mostly snow free; just a couple little spots of snow in a couple gullys. The ice on Peggy's Pond is starting to break up and a few campsites are bare and dry. We had planned to go up Mt. Daniel the next day, and started out with good intentions! But as we got higher on the ridge, the mist got heavier on our faces. Visibility stunk, and after hearing that another party was wanding their route on the way up we figured we'd had enough exercise for the weekend and headed back to camp! After a quick breakdown of camp, we were on our way home to listen to our neighbors blow $$$ up in the air. If you head up this trail, don't stop at Squaw Lake. Head up just a little bit further and have your lunch at Cathedral Pass. The views west at Deep Lake and the waterfalls are fantastic and definitely worth the extra effort!

The Cathedral Rock Trail is in generally excellent shape for the first couple of miles. The switchbacks up the side of the valley are clear and dry, until just before the Squaw Lake bench. The still heavy snow melt coming off the bench is putting a lot of water into the last half mile of trail before the lake. There is spotty snow on the trail before getting to the lake. Once past Squaw Lake the snow cover becomes almost 100% along the traverse up to Cathedral Pass. The first half of the Peggy's Pond trail is dry and clear, but the second half has several steepish sections still covered by firm snow. The area around Peggy's Pond is generally snow covered. Although some of the campsights in the tree clusters seem to be bare, most camping is still on snow, and only a couple spots around the rim of the Pond are melted through. The scramble routes up Mt. Daniel are in fine shape, with firm and stable snow providing great footing. There are plenty of bare rock sections along the ridge crests for dry and warm seating while enjoying the views(Deep Lk is open, but Circle and Venus Lks are still mostly covered). The East, Middle, and West summits all are bare and dry and easily reached.

Each year each of my two boys gets a 'separate camping trip' alone with Daddy for a few days. This year Daniel, age 10, wanted to hike up Mt Daniel. His last trip up Mt Daniel was in his mother's womb 11 years ago. We left late. The Cathedral Peak trail is rough in spots from heavy traffic but the grade is gentle. We used headlamps for the last mile to Squaw Lake and set up camp under a big hemlock by the light of a hazy moon. In the morning we moved camp up to Peggy's Pond, making the traverse below Cathedral Rock rather carefully with our packs. It's a long way down to Deep Lake. After lunch we started up the SE ridge of Mt Daniel following a well-defined foot track NW from the outlet of Peggy's Pond. The clouds lifted to about 7000', giving us a beautiful view of Peggy's Pond, deep and blue, framed by green meadows and dark trees below the fog-shrouded crags of Cathedral Rock. On the way up to the clouds we had close encounters with yellow-jackets and with ptarmigan. We thanked God that we weren't stung and that we were able to pet the unusually tame birds. Above 7000' the ridge becomes narrow and craggy, in places only a few feet wide with cliffs on the right and steep rocky slopes on the left dropping into the fog. Our foot track continued upward, sometimes over crags and sometimes around them to the left or the right. At 7600' the track heads W off the ridge across a steep dirt and scree slope. I held Daniel's hand as we crossed the steepest part. The trail ended at a gentle snow slope which crested, according to the map, at the top of the Daniel glacier. All we could see was snow and fog and light rain. Above the snow slope we found a gentle rocky ridge which led NNW to a summit which had no register, then SW to another slightly higher crag, this one with a register. We entered our names. Daniel clung to the top of King County while I took pictures. Below him cliffs and gullies dissolved into the fog. Overhead the clouds parted for a moment to reveal glorious blue sky, then fog and rain closed in again. On the way down in the fog on the snowfield at the top of the Daniel glacier we somehow took a wrong turn. A steep snow finger dropping down to us between equally steep ledges didn't look familiar so I checked the compass. It indicated we were headed north, exactly the wrong direction. It didn't make sense, but the compass has a better sense of direction than I do, so we turned around. Within a few minutes we found where our tracks turned left when they should have turned right, and in another couple of minutes we found the trail back to the SE ridge. The foot-track along the ridge was more difficult to follow on the descent and a couple of times we found ourselves too far down on the W side of the ridge scrambling around on loose talus in the fog and gathering darkness. Peggy's Pond was barely visible in the fog by the time we reached the ptarmigan snowfield. We plotted our route down before darkness closed in and only needed headlamps for the last 500' of the descent to our camp. Daniel was too tired to celebrate our accomplishment; by the time I got supper cooked he was sound asleep.