Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Mount Daniel
A strenuous one-day scramble up Mount Daniel, featuring panoramic views, alpine lakes, and a satisfying mix of trail and off-trail adventure.
Ambrose Zhi
- Sat, Aug 23, 2025
- Alpine Scramble - Mount Daniel
- Mount Daniel
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Road was rough but passable. I don't recall any crazy potholes.
The trail was in great conditions, and the entire route to Mt Daniel summit was snow free.
It was a very hot day. I brought 3L of water and ran out well before reaching the summit. In hindsight, I should have filtered some water at the last water source.
Last water source at Peggy's Pond.
The whole scramble took us 12 hours with too many generous breaks, including one long break at Peggy's Pond to cool down and filter water. I think the whole thing can be done in 10 hours or so. You can find my GPS track here: Ascent of Mount Daniel on 2025-08-23 - Peakbagger.com
We camped out at the TH the day before and started hiking around 5AM on Saturday. The hike in to Peggy's Pond was straight-forward and easy to navigate. From Peggy's pond, we followed a climber's trail up onto the southeast ridge. The path is well defined and is easy to follow (mostly class 2 with occasional T3 moves). If you start doing some T5 or class 4 moves, you are definitely off route.
After climbing about a 1,000 feet above the pond the views open up significantly, and in the distance you see what you think is the goal. But that's the false summit, or Mt Daniel East Peak... the true summit doesn't reveal itself until much later.
Some sections of the scramble route have lots of loose material, so be sure to manage terrain/rock fall risks. The summit block scramble in the end is T3/T4 in my opinion. The summit register is fairly new, and it was brought up there in 2024
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