"Harder than we expected, but still definitely worth it. We got lost on the way down and ended up at Deep Lake, making our hike over 20 miles. The views from the top were incredible." — matthewanderson • Aug 31, 2025

"finally knocked off this classic high peak of the alpine lakes wilderness. zero ppl & a billion mosquitos. on the way up, snapped a trekking pole when postholed through a snow moat, idiot. snow route required some steep frontpointing over a bergschrund, glissading wasn’t an option. refilled water at peggy’s pond and got swarmed. worst mosquitos of a day of constant mosquitos, even out in the glacier. didn’t see a soul at peggy’s, it’s completely inhospitable. " — scott • Jul 15, 2025

"From the boys' WTA report: We are the Mountain Goats, Terrence (13) and Nathan (15), and on Sunday we did a one-day hike of Mount Daniel by way of Peggy's Pond. We drove up Saturday evening to camp at the trailhead to camp so that we could get an early start. The road is pretty bad. Lots of washboard and potholes. Takes pretty close to an hour to get up there. It is a scenic drive though. We got to the trailhead at 845 and immediately got set up to sleep in the 4Runner. Dad bivouacked outside. The lot was very full, with people parked on the road also. We got up at about 4:30 am, had a leisurely breakfast, packed up, and left at 5:45am. The start of the trail is very nice - only a little bit of elevation gain, and very well maintained going up a few switchbacks to Squaw Lake. It was nice and cool in the forest and a great way to start. No one was camped at Squaw Lake, which looks very nice. The way to Cathedral Pass was very nice as the sun was rising. Beautiful meadows and views of Cathedral Rock. You hit the PCT for a short while and then get on Peggy's Pond trail where you go around Cathedral Rock to get to the Pond. You lose some elevation here and there is ..." — BryHong8 • Jul 28, 2019

"This was the longest day+ I’ve done in quite a while. The hike started Friday night with an 8:00 pm departure from the trailhead. We’d been shooting for 6:00, but underestimated the drive time (It’s about 70 minutes from Roslyn on a bumpy, but sedan-passable dirt road). The darkness caused a couple of wrong turns on the trail from the PCT to Peggy’s Pond and we rolled into camp at 11:00. Sleep enfolded us by 11:30 and too quickly abandoned us at 3:30 AM. The clouds had lifted and we were blessed with nearly full moonlight for the initial route-finding. We left Peggy’s at 4:15 and headed NNW, ascending to the notch just west of the point labeled 6350 ft on old topo maps, arriving at the ridge at 5:30. By this time the clouds had returned and we had intermittent spits of rain and fog for the rest of the morning. The fog complicated the route-finding to only a minor degree. We contoured around, dropping slightly to 6100 feet to skirt below the steepest snowfields. We’d been worried that the snow might be slushy, despite the early start, because the nightly lows had been well above freezing for the past several days. It turned out to be a great consistency (neither ice nor slush) a..." — TynanRammGranberg • Jul 23, 2016

"Colin and I pulled into the Tucquala Meadows Trailhead around 8:30 Saturday night with just enough light left to see a gaggle of geese in the marshy lake. A clear starry sky looked promising until light rain began to fall. After dinner and a gear check we crashed out with four hours left before the planned 2 am wakeup call, hopeful for better weather to come. We were climbing up the Cathedral Trail by 2:45 and to Peggys Pond before sunrise. After leaving the PCT there are two short cliffy sections where the trail fades into the rock. We topped off on water while the morning light crept over Cathedral Rock. We had our first glimpse of Daniels East Peak and Hyas Glacier as we began up the SE Ridge. A few steps later Spade Mountain and Circle Lake came into view, and the the true summit of the highest point in King or Kittatas Counties. After passing by the top of Hyas Glacier we crossed below the East Peak and the "Middle Summit" or false summit on a narrowing boot path through crumbling gravel. We paused to admire the massive Lynch Glacier before we continued up the gentle rocky summit slope to the base of a small pinnacle. A decent bootpath leads up to the top, but..." — Jeb • Sep 8, 2013