Winter Scramble - Red Mountain (Salmon La Sac)

We beat all the snowmachines to the intersection of FS road 46, and walked the road for 1 mile to the trailhead.  Road has been groomed for skiers & snowmachines.  Red Mountain itself is  a voluntary non-motorized area.  A sno-park permit is required to park anywhere beyond the Last Resort.

From the trailhead, we ascended directly up, heading for the most northerly Red Mtn sub-summit.  Route finding is generally easy, as the route just follows a ridge all the way up.  Snow was very powdery, mixed in with some crusty areas under the tress.  Higher up, I observed some various crusty layers on top of the powdery snow.  There are a few open areas near the top, so we stuck on the ridge, and in the trees most of the time.  The summit was a little tricky as it was hard to make steps on the crusty snow covering the rocks.  The true summit to the south (same contour) looked difficult to get to from our viewpoint, will do that one another time.

• 8 miles, 3500'
• ~7 hours roundtrip