Hawkins Mountain

Started hiking from De Roux campground at 8:03 a.m. We took our boots off and crossed De Roux creek at approximately at 5100’. Could of continued up the valley of the south side of De Roux Creek before crossing, but we were able to see where the trail crossed the creek. We followed the trail when we could to Gallagher Head Lake where we topped off on water. From the lake we left the trail and headed W-NW heading for the upper 6200’ basin. We did cross under a cornice under the Hawkins east ridge. After reaching the upper bowl we continued to the saddle between east summit of Hawkins “The Thimble” and the main summit ridge on the west side. It didn’t look possible from bellow that we were going to find a way through west ridge cornices. Staying on the ridge gave us easy access to main ridge near the false summit. We followed the ridge and the climbers trail on west side of the ridge to the main summit. We made the summit by 2:15 P.M.

After enjoying the views for some 30 minutes. We headed back down meeting people that were coming up from the standard route (Salmon La Sac side). We had a nice glissade from the saddle back down to the upper bowl. We retraced are steps back to the Gallagher Head Lake and followed the trail when we could to the last switchback on the trail (5400’) and a large boulder. We had a little time, but not the energy to summit Esmeralda. So we used the extra time to do a little teaching. So we had the students lead us out taking the cross-country route all the way to footbridge at the beginning near the TH. We bypassed Pt 5265’ on the north side, and made it to the cars by 6 P.M.

11 miles
3500’ gain
10 hrs

Gear used: Ice ax for the glissading