Finally took a crack at Mount Forgotten today after seeing it from Mount Dickerman over the years. The 3 miles up to Perry Creek falls are snow free and the trail is a nice, mild ascent. After crossing the creek, the elevation gain begins in the earnest and the snow begins to make an appearance. The trail gets more difficult to follow here, and there was only a faint boot path once the snow was on the route for good. At least today it was easy to get off track a bit in the morning, however by the time we came down, there were enough people who had come up to Forgotten Meadows to beat the path down pretty well.

Forgotten Meadows is a beautiful destination, with great views in all directions. Unobstructed Glacier Peak, Mount Pugh across the Sauk River valley, Sloan, Baker, the Monte Cristo area peaks, etc. As previous trip reports describe, the proper path towards Mount Forgotten is a bit ambiguous at this point, and the snow didn't help. There was no path to follow, so we made our way down heading to the left from the left or slightly northwest from the northwest edge of the meadow, and then dropping down pretty steeply to what seemed to be a fairly clear route below the ridge leading up to the mountain. We were able to make a path towards the northwest, then gradually turning to the northeast. The slopes here are quite steep (45 degrees plus) and the traverse was difficult. Because the snow was soft, and there was no path we fell frequently. Luckily the soft snow made for easy self arrests, but note ice axes and comfort crossing steep slopes with long runout are required right now. There are several areas when you have to go through trees and snow as well. It's slow going.

Below what we thought was the summit, we decided to scramble up the rock to the summit and get off the snow. Turned out we were heading towards a false summit, the true summit still in the distance. Realizing our mistake, we made a route more or less parallel to the trail 300 feet below. Luckily we didn't get "cliffed" and eventually picked up the final east/west ridge and the trail, essentially cutting out the loop that the normal trail takes. The final few hundred feet up to the summit are very steep and snow covered, the summit itself being snow free, with a small area to relax. Many excellent views with feet dangling over the edge.

We decided to try and follow the true trail back on the way down to avoid down climbing the rock we had come up. This worked out well and we eventually picked up our tracks, again traversing several steep slopes and falling and self arresting several times. Some descent elevation gain back up to the meadows where there were a dozen or so people and a nondescript slog down and back to the car.

Overall, it's maybe a bit early to do the mountain, but it provided a good challenge and some great solitude beyond the meadow. 13 miles round trip. 5 hours up, 2 hours and 50 down. Ices axes, poles, gaiters.