A warm-up day that got a bit out of control with over 7,000 vert.

En route to Mt Howard, Josh and I flew up the never-ending switchbacks to Rock Lake and decided to add on the short-ish climb to Rock Mountain. Great summit views north toward Glacier Peak, only issue was swarms of flying ants ONLY on the summit.

We then took the Nason Ridge Trail over and down to Crescent Lake at the base of Mt Howard. From here it was off-trail bushwack-y routefinding through some cliff bands to broad alpine meadows to talus fields to the summit. Great, very similar views again, and again swarms of flying ants, this time ONLY on the very highest summit rock. Flying ants must love summits, perhaps they’d like peakery?

Time started to slow on the long trek back down… then up… then across… then down forevvvvvver in a bonking dizziness. The bluebird day turned dark and rain started — but only in the last few minutes of the descent. We played the weather perfectly (or did it play us?).

To cap a great day, we hobbled out of the car to grab humungous milkshakes at a stand off route 2 towards Leavenworth (highly recommended — you can’t miss the gigantic MILKSHAKES sign). When the absurd sugar rush kicked in we finally felt able to start strategizing about peak objectives for day 2…