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March 27, 2010, Mt Mastiff

3/27/10
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Posted by trees4me on 3/29/10 4:26am
The problem with this time of year is there are too many places to go!  Friday my mind was a blur of mountains and lines to be skied all over the cascades and olympics.  We wanted to summit something and get some good steep skiing in, but where?

Eventually we settled on the somewhat known to us option of Mt Mastiff on Nason Ridge (we had camped at Merrit Lake in January).  Alarm went off at 3:45 on Saturday and we were out the door with plenty of coffee and excitement.  Drove up the access road to just before the powerlines and we were skinning and hiking the road before 6:30am.

Booted up the trail and then the ridge to 4900-ft, where skins became the weapon of choice.  Skinned along the ridge until it turned sharp. 

Ridge to Mastiff from pt 6125



The ridge didn't look that enticing to continue on, and there was great snow and a steep unknown basin to Lost Lake on our right.  We dropped into the unknown, all we knew was there was several rollovers and we couldn't tell if any had lines that went.  We worked through what we could see, but I've got a *better* line for next time  ;D

lost lake basin route photo


After the lake, we headed north to the ridge.  Then we followed the ridge up to the summit.  Saw some tracks on the summit.... and then skied back down to Lost Lake.  Then over to Merrit Lake and down and out for a 6000-ft day.

Mastiff East Face photo



link to more photos and captions
Nice work!  That's a big day to get all the way in/out.

Thanks Marcus.

I forgot to ask:  Has anyone skied the Howard-Mastiff basin all the way down to the trail?  We saw cliffs and icefalls, but no obvious route through ...and I'm usually very creative

Wenatchee guys have a lot of info: Rock to Mastiff Traverse

yeah, I've seen several TRs on traverse b/n Howard and Mastiff and Rock, but has anyone actually picked there way down the Ho-Ma Basin??

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march-27-2010-mt-mastiff
trees4me
2010-03-29 11:26:54