Placeholder Routes & Places

Trip Report    

Satulick Mountain

The route in blue is the route that Kim recorded. I could not figure out how to diminish the number of waypoints nor did I try to delete the return leg of the trip. The consequence is that the route appears very busy. I imported the map from the 18 April 2014 attempt in order to get the waypoints for the Kautz, Pyramid and Fishers Hornpipe Creeks, and the “Turnback” point on the 18 April 2014 trip. The little yellow flags approximately marking these locations can barely be seen sticking above the route. From the Turnback we were 1.5 hours to the summit.
The crossing of Fishers Hornpipe Creek at 4300 ft was probably the sketchiest part of the trip. The snow had melted out such that there was a single column/wall of snow across the bridge. It narrowed to barely larger than a boot track on the west side and was slightly overhung in places. One step collapsed on me as I crossed it. On the way back we shoveled in some steps such that we could get onto the upstream exposed edge of the bridge. Then we shoveled about 1/3 of the wall’s thickness to make it easier to traverse the bridge. Once on the other side we shoveled in a step or two and used the root wad of an adjacent log to get off the bridge and back up onto the bank. Certainly this was something I had never done.
Although there were some significant clear sections along the trail from here, the snow was nearly continuous beyond 4300 feet. There was no snow along Kautz and Pyramid Creeks; it was patchy in the forest between the creeks.
We wore snowshoes from about the crossing of Devil’s Dream Creek to the summit. On the way down we just plunge stepped; it was way better than the snowshoes would have been.
The weather forecast for a 50% chance of showers, with about 0.16 inches of rain expected during the day. It turned out it hardly rained a drop and in fact we got significant sunshine, especially for about the last two hours of the trip up. The predicted high this date was about 46 F, I suspect with the sun it was at least in the fifties.
From the Turnback, El. 4840 ft, we went nearly due west to about elevation 5000 ft, which was a little too high before beginning our traverse to the south. You can see on the route that we got to 5000 ft, descended about 40 ft or so then began the traverse. Stay low and above the deeply incised drainage that comes off the bench (above about 5080 feet). The stream does not jump out at you on the map, but it is indicated by a couple of subtle V-shaped contours along the bench, and between it and the Turnback. The distinct V in the 4800 ft contour just east of the Turnback is probably this same drainage.
The lip of the bench becomes evident to the south and southeast as you continue the traverse. Ascend to the bench, then turn slightly south of west and ascend to about 5200 feet. Approach the north ridge of Satulick via the ridge that intersects it in the saddle immediately north of the summit. As the map indicates the steepest section is from 5200 to 5400 feet. Staying on the ridge however, keeps you in some fairly dense trees, which was important on this date, I thought, due to the somewhat soft/wet snow conditions. Once above 5400 ft it is an easy walk to the summit area.
Roundtrip Summary
Time (24 hr) Miles Total Elev. (ft) Total Time
(h m) Time Up
(h m) Comments
Out In
0745 1820 ~12.5 ~3300 10 35 5 55 Generally on snowshoes beyond Devil’s Dream Crk; boots on return.

Weather Partly sunny; temperatures in mid to upper-40’s (F); maybe higher
Split Times
Leg Miles  Elev. (ft) Time
(h m) Speed (mi/h) Elev.
(ft/h) Comments
T.H. (El. 2760 ft) to
Mildred Pt. Jct. ~1.7 1043 1 00 1.7 1043 Trail
Mildred Pt. Jct To Turnback (of 18 April trip) ~3.0 1160 3 25 0.9 --- Elev. Gain not continuous so rate not computed
Turnback to Summit 0.5 740 1 30 0.33 490 Wet/soft snow; some route finding issues
Summit to Longmire 6.7 220 4 10 1.6 ---