Distance: 62 mi.
Elevation Gain: 23200 ft.

Day 1
13.1 miles
+4600′ -5100′
Pasayten Peak

We had planned a bros trip to get rad in the Picket range and climb Luna and Fury, but the weather was just not cooperating. Rather than being tent bound in the Pickets we decided to set our sights further east in the Pasayten Wilderness where it’s always drier. We planned for a big loop and to hit a bunch of the higher peaks in the area.

We met up at Brian’s house in Mazama, did a bit of repacking, and hopped in Jim’s subbie to drive to Slate Pass. After lots of driving we were hiking by 10:45. We shortly split off on the Buckskin Ridge trail and took a break at Silver Lake for lunch. From here we went off trail to gain the south ridge of Pasayten Peak. There was some unpleasant scree and talus but once on the final ridge the scrambling was good. Descending the north side to Silver Pass was quite beautiful with small streams and waterfalls all over the place.

From Silver Pass we followed the rough trail down until it abruptly switchbacked super steep up to 6500′, where it started to traverse north again. It was super hot through here and we all were getting pretty beat. The final ascent over Buckskin Ridge was a bit demoralizing, but we finally rolled into camp at Buckskin Lake at around 7:45. The mosquitoes were pretty bad there.

Day 2
17.5 miles
+5700 -5100
Tatoosh Butte, Ptarmigan Peak, Dot Peak

The following morning we were moving again a little after 7 and grateful for the cooler weather. The trail was in pretty good shape for this slow descent to the Middle Fork Pasayten River. We weren’t sure if it was better to cross right near here or to follow the trail farther north to where the Pasayten River forks. We decided to check out the near river crossing and it had a great bridge so we took it. This was probably the correct choice since there are signs of a big landslide washout near the other crossing. It seemed like someone had recently logged the trail on the east side of the river too, making travel easy.

We eventually followed signs to Tatoosh Buttes through burned areas. After filling up with water at Lease Creek we switchbacked our way up the ridge, hoping to make it to a nice place to hunker down for the strong band of rain that was forecast to roll through. We pushed on through some light showers and eventually set up the megamid tent to nap and wait. It rained pretty hard for about an hour but then dried out and we were able to continue on to Tatoosh Buttes. We dropped our packs and made a quick jaunt up the higher butte. These upper meadows were beautiful and we really enjoyed the low effort rambling.

We originally were thinking we would go up Tamarack Butte and then camp at Ptarmigan Lake, but since things were going well we thought we could actually go up and over Ptarmigan Peak and camp at Dot Lakes. It also was becoming crazy windy at this point and we thought it might be better to camp at the more frequented Dot Lakes. We were actually getting quite cold in the howling wind as we went up and over Ptarmigan. Clouds were rolling in too as we descended. We made it to the east shoulder of Dot Mountain and dropped our packs for the quick 300′ jaunt up that peak. We descend a crappy gully and made our way to the outlet of lower Dot Lake where we found a decent camp but it was a little wind exposed. We got rained on a bit and briefly snowed on.

Day 3
9.1 miles
+3900 -4100
Pass Butte, Lost Peak

After the long previous day we slept in a bit more before heading south to climb Lost Peak. We did a mostly flat traverse across the first basin before having to drop down into the burned out Ptarmigan Creek basin. We found the key notch in the ridge at 7000′. We carefully downclimbed this loose gully and continued down to about 6100′.

Once on the south side of the basin we ascended talus slopes and avoiding the burned out trees. We eventually made an eastward traverse across seemingly endless talus. This was slow going and we didn’t make it to Butte Pass until 12:30. From here we took the direct ridge up to Pass Butte. This was actually quite fun scrambling, but upon reaching the top of Pass Butte, we realized it was still a long ways to Lost. Jim wasn’t feeling great but we kept him motoring and everyone made it.

We had a GPS track of a group that did a lower traverse back to Butte Pass. We followed this pretty well and thought this was a more efficient way back, that is until we got ourselves into steep terrain on the west side of pt 7275. We should have just dropped a bit lower or gone right over the point. Back at Butte Pass we picked up our overnight gear and followed the burned out trail back toward Shellrock Pass. We found a nice camp at 6800′ that was our favorite of the trip. We got rained on a bit more this evening.

Day 4
10.8 miles
+6200 -6500
Blackcap Mt., Mt. Lago

The following morning we followed the nice trail up to Shellrock Pass and dropped our gear on the ridge to scramble Blackcap Mt. This scramble was probably the most fun of the trip but unfortunately Jim was still having trouble with some foot issues and had to bail. He headed back and was going to go ahead and try to find us a camp at Doris or Fred’s Lake. We were able to communicate where he had gone with our two inReach devices.

Brian, Rodrigo, and I finished the scramble, picked our gear back up and headed down to the creek between Carru and Lago We dropped our gear once more and headed up this steep forested slope toward Lago. Upon reaching the upper scree fields we realized that Lago is probably one of the crappiest piles of rocks we had been up. We were tired and demoralized at this point and couldn’t talk ourselves into going up Carru as well.

We headed back to pick up our gear one more time and then slowly headed up the trail toward Fred’s Lake where Jim had messaged he had set up camp. Apparently there were a bunch of people at Lake Doris and there wasn’t really room. Fred’s Lake is nicer anyway. We enjoyed this camp and I tried to fish a bit only to lose the one bite I had.

Day 5
11.5 miles
+2800 -2400

The exit was uneventful and we were all quite tired by the end and ready for some recovery food and beverages. A great consolation trip in imperfect weather with good friends.

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Recommended brew: Nightmare Brewing Parrilla…sooooo good!

Gear Used:

• Backpacking tent
• Fishing pole
• Glacier glasses
• GPS
• Helmet
• Overnight pack
• Sleeping pad
• Summer sleeping bag
• Stove
• Trail runners
• Trekking poles
• Water drops/filter

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