Snowking Mountain, WA | July 2019

Snowking is quite the challenge to get to. The road to the trailhead, not so much.  Travis, my climbing partner, and I accessed the trail head via Highway 20, and then via Cascade River Road in Marblemount. Forest Service Road 1570 takes off on the right just after mile marker 14, to get you to the trailhead. There is a couple of Creek crossings, but  We went on a thursday night and suffered for the first five miles of super steep climber's trail. We came to a smaller summit (can't remember what it's name was) and found we had to cross it, drop down another 500 feet, up again to 5300 feet, and back down again to reach Cyclone Lake. The trail became very indecisive and braided on this ridgeline. It was rather hard to follow. Friday morning we made our summit via the Kindy Ridge (Northern) approach. We lost the climber's trail a couple more times, trying to stay up on the ridge, and ended up bouldering a bit and climbing through some junipers. Fun. We achieved the summit at 08:20 local, and I was antenna'd up and on the air by 08:24 local. It took a bit to find some folks, but I was able to just barely make my four I needed. Luckily they reported too, so I got the 8 points! Then for the long, 12 mile slog back down to the truck. Here's where Travis and I got a lot of our beta (info): https://www.summitpost.org/snowking-mountain/152058