Trip Report    

Alpine Scramble - Lookout Mountain

5/29/16 (a year of low snow due to warm weather / high melt-off) Trail was overgrown at 3400' meadow, had several blowdowns, but was in pretty good shape overall up to 4600' large meadow, at which point it was muddy, slippery, and in some places tread was scraped bare due to avalanches. We reached snow at 4800'. at which point we departed the trail and traversed to about 5,200' ESE of the summit to (try to) avoid steep terrain. The snow was very difficult - quite a bit of bare ground, with shallow snow on borders that was sometimes icy, sometimes rotten, required VERY aggressive use of ice ax & kicking steps. The area ESE of the summit has less-thick timber, which made for more open, soft & easier snow, but we didn't go S far enough, and upon ascending towards the summit from this area, hit steeper terrain that was tough to negotiate again. (In hindsight, we would have been better off if we had traversed farther S all the way to the SE Ridge at 5,200', to stay on soft snow; this is basically the way we went on the descent.) Weather forecast of "showers" was wrong (as per usual) - we got quite a bit of heavy rain, hail, sleet, and strong winds that made for major hypothermia conditions. Luckily this was a very strong group and they handled it like champs. The lookout was unlocked and provided a majorly-needed shelter. Round trip 9:45hrs.

Brian Booth

June 29, 2016