Alpine Scramble - Peak 6,050 (aka Not Bryant)

Started at the Snow Lake trailhead and turned off at the Source Lake trail (the old Snow Lake trail)  Past the view above Source Lake to where the trail heads east.  We traveled to the blueberry fields close to a couple of small tarns but not quite to the ridge that overlooks snow lake.   (Ripe berries)   We traveled up a rocky stream bed but on the descent it looks like we should have gone a couple hundred feet higher to a more open rocky slope.

At the top of the rocky gully we got into more open boulder fields.  At first the visibility was very poor and route finding was difficult.   There is a small ridge jutting to the East between Chair Peak and Not Bryant (6050).  To the right of the ridge (North) is an open cirque that is the descent route for Chair.  The route to Not Bryant is to take the gully/ramp just to the left of that East ridge.  In snow conditions that is the most challenging part of the snow travel.  There was one small patch of snow that we avoided.  In rocky conditions it is a steep dirt, talus, scree hillside. 

At the top of the ramp is more open talus slopes and boulder fields.  We picked our way up that to the summit ridge.  Accessing the summit ridge is a short scramble.   The summit itself is a scramble on nice rock.  We had views of Melakwa lake, Chair Peak and the immediate ridge but not much else.  Lots of clouds.  We could not see Kaleetan though it was just across from us.

Descent of the peak was fine but the peak ridge was more challenging.  Lots of loose rock.  (The same crummy rock people complain about when climbing Chair)  When we got a bit lower into the talus slopes one member of the party lost his balance and took a tumble.  He rolled well over 30 feet of talus.  He ended up with minor lacerations and some bruises but was able to walk out though very slowly.  We still had a lot of difficult scramble terrain to travel on the way out.

Views of snow lake and Guye peak were opening up later in the day but also smoke haze was increasing.

Ascent to the summit was around 3 and a half hours.  Descent turned out to be 5.5 hours.

I had done this scramble in the snow before but this was my first time as a pure rock scramble.  The talus and boulder fields are tolerable and I even enjoy boulder hopping   a bit but it does get pretty tedious.  This trip is more enjoyable as a mixed snow and rock scramble than all the boulder work without snow.  In the future I will probably stick to leading it in May or June.