Alpine Scramble - Philadelphia Mountain

This was harder than expected. Started at 07:45. Travel to Lake Serene was straightforward. No snow on the trail and all blowdowns have been cleared. We took the 5 minute detour to Lunch Rock and stopped for a break there to enjoy the fantastic views of the lake and the cliffs of Index.

The real work started soon after. We didn't find a particularly obvious bootpath forking of the trail towards Philadelphia. Taking semi-educated guesses we started making our way up the ridge near the scenic toilet (hikers on the main trail have a majestic view towards whoever is sitting on the throne). It was slow-going. Lots of brush (slide alder and a bunch of blowdowns) lead to moss-covered rocks that took a bit of time to navigate. More brush after that had us concerned that we wouldn't make the summit at the current pace. However the ridge opened up at a more forgiving gradient soon after and our pace improved. We brought snowshoes and stashed them around 3,000ft. They were in the way when getting through the veggies and the snow felt consolidated enough that we would hopefully not have to deal with substantial postholing further up on the mountain.

Once snow covered the ground consistently travel became much more pleasant and it was smooth sailing the rest of the way to the peak with folks taking turns breaking trail. Occasional postholing but most of the time the track was established at ankle-deep level. Summited at 14:15.

Good time on the way down while on snow; conditions were great for plunge-stepping. The rock / slide alder section took lots of time again to get through though. I would imagine that at least the slide alder part would be much easier to handle with more snow cover. Afterwards long way down on the trail. I didn't realize how rocky the trail is in the upper half (I should have popped an ibuprofen). Back at the cars at 19:30. We made it to "Good Brewing Sultan" in time for some solid drinks and burgers!

Side note: The statistics in the route details for this one are a bit off. Elevation gain is definitely more than the posted 3,660ft. Most of our watches clocked in at 4,200ft of gain.