August 30, 2011, Mt. Danials

A few days ago, while looking for turns in the Ingalls peak area, I was enjoying the views to the west and it looked like Mt Danial's, had plenty plenty of snow.  Since I had never been in the area, it seemed like it might be a good idea to go have a look.  I drove to the trail head at the end of the road on the Cle Elum River and spent the night.  It was a nice walk to Peggy's Pond, there were quite a few people camping there, no wonder it's a beautiful place.  Trudged right up the valley to the east (?) peak of Mt Danial's (7899) I booted all the way, but could have skinned as well.  I chose climbers right and it seemed to be a good way, but there were a number of people using the ridge on climbers left and they were happy with that.  I was able to ski almost right off the top, but had to take my skis off for a short hop across some rock, that turned out to be more than I bargained  for getting across the melt gap.  A week earlier and I could have skied all the way, from there it was wonderful turns to within 200 yards of Peggy's Pond, very nice.  The rout I skied was easy money, but there was great skiing to be had off the north side as well as into Venus lake. Round trip about 9.5 hrs. with 2000 feet of skiing.