Daniel and Cathedral

Some trips are about the journey not the destination.

Seth and I left Seattle around 11 am in my green Honda Accord headed for the Cathedral Pass trail head on Salmon La Sac road. We took Exit 80 Roslyn/Salmon La Sac on I-90 and drove past Suncadia to Roslyn, we stopped at a deli and bought a couple of panini sandwiches. We continued through Roslyn and up past Ronald, passing Lake Cle Elum, the turn off for Cooper Lake. At Salmon La Sac campground where we left the county maintained road and the gravel began. The road was passable and 17 miles after Roslyn we came to Tucquala Lake and its beautiful green meadow, in a hurry to get up the trail we promised we'd take pictures on our return and continued another 6.3 miles to the Cathedral Pass Trial head. I was surprised to see the large number of cars and horse trailers in the parking lot.

We loaded up and headed up the trail which switches back and forth through the forest up the ridge. Before too long a group of three horsemen passed us, each riding and leading a pack horse. We plodded along through the forest, wishing we had someone to carry our pack. Before we reached the top of the ridge we came upon one of the horseman's wallets, we picked it up hoping we see them further up the trail. (We never did, I ended up dropping his wallet in the mail when I got home). After climbing around 500 feet we reached a level section and came to Squaw Lake. The fall colors were in full force with the huckleberry bushes turning orange and red, the yellows have yet to appear. After a few pictures we made our way round the lake and started climbing up on the ridge where we passed several tarns with occasional glimpses of Cathedral Rock up ahead.


Just below Cathedral Rock the trail joins the Pacific Crest Trail. A hiker was coming up the PCT from Stevens Pass, he was three days into his journey and was hiking from Stevens to the Oregon border. We were all headed the same direction, down the PCT towards Deep Lake, we chatted with him until we came to the first switch back where a boot track continues straight to Peggy's Pond. I snapped a photo for him and we wished him happy trails. The trail to Peggy's Pond follows the ridge line around the base of Cathedral Rock, its a bit rough in places. Our main focus was Daniel on Saturday, but the plan was to attempt Cathedral if we felt up to it, I was coming off a mid-week cold and Seth had been a bit sluggardly since Olympus.

As we circumnavigated the base the of Cathedral the cliffs rose above us we both were like lets go. We headed up a gully on the south eastern side of jumbled mass of cliffs. We should have tromped all the way around to Peggy's and dropped our packs but it was 4pm and we were worried about the remaining day light and really wanted to climb; the mountains called.


We made our way up the "obvious gully", a 3rd class scramble up a fairly steep slope, with some vegetation, scree and a loose rock. Seth and I alternated scrambling up the gully, one pausing off to the side or under a slight overhang to avoid the rocks that the man above might kicked loose. Finally we reached the top of a ridge where a stand of scraggled trees stood. Magnificent views spread out of the basin surrounding Deep Lake. From here we dropped our packs, Seth converted to a hip belt and the top of his pack and I put on my day pack, some water, a jacket and strapped my camera to my chest. Taking a couple of slings we set up through the narrower gully to the right (or east) of a set of fingers. Here the scrambling changed to class 4, requiring use of my hands a lot closer to the rock. Usually I carry my camera in a pouch buckled to my chest strap of my pack for easy access, here I stopped and put my camera down inside my bag, this would be a fateful event on the down climb. Partway up the gully we came to a class 5 move, a large 12 foot boulder blocked the way. Seth climbed up directly up and over, and I made my way over along the side, my fingers clinging to tiny cracks as I wedged my way up. Fingers shaking, I rested on top of the boulder, and felt the adrenaline pumping. Here was the first evidence that folks had passed this way before, several slings and a rappel ring were tied off on the boulder. Several more slings and a rappel ring hung off a lone tree at the top of the gully 15 or 20 feet above us.

At the top of the notch we were (I believed based on my reading of Becky) at the top of the NW couloir. As we stood on the ridge, the wind whistled through the lone pine that stood behind us and a rope stretched across a void across from us. Eerily we yelled "hello" across the couloir; no one returned our call. We had climbed from the southern side to the north west and run out of route, we had no rope and the light was fading fast. Worried about getting back down before dark, with our camp in sight (Peggy's Pond) below us, we opted to turn around. Not this day, but some future day we'll make it to the top. While the most direct route would have been climbing down the couloir, our packs lay in the opposite direction. Rather than risk down climbing through terrain unknown and getting cliffed out, we retraced our steps. At the bottom of the gully while Seth down climbed, I attempted to switch my camera to outside of my pack. I held the camera bag by the handle in my right hand, put my left arm through the pack's strap and then went to switch the camera to my left hand to put my right hand through the other pack's strap and the camera slipped.... and tumbled over and over down the gully. Somehow nothing went through me, no swear words, no argggggh. I just calmly watched it tumble out of sight. Sigh. Seth and I scrambled back down to our packs and while I searched among the trees and bushes Seth found it several feet below us. After retrieving the camera, I examined it and the review panel was cracked, but it seemed to still take photos, I just couldn't gimp any more. We then scrambled the rest of the way down to the trail. It would be much faster to rappel down, without concern of sliding on the scree and loose rocks.

Back on the Peggy's Pond trail we made our way along the ridge past the foundation of the old cabin and up to the pond. Bugs were not an issue as the fall chill had killed them off. While Seth set up his Black Diamond Betamid Tarp, I got water to boil for dinner and to refill our bladders. We ate as the darkness fell; that freeze dried stuff always tastes good in the mountains after a long day. We were both tired and we rolled into the sack pretty quick around 8:10 pm. Five minutes later the first rain drops fell and another 20 and we were both asleep. The Betamid is super light weight but isn't enclosed, even though we were both in bivvy sacks, I hadn't completely zipped myself in, several times during the night a critter crawled over my face. The rain came off and on with varying intensity, the wind picked up and at times gusted up to 30 miles per hour. Since we suspected weather, we had set a late wake time to start for Daniel of 5:00 am, as the night wore on it was clear this wasn't gonna lead to anything good, we'd have woken to darkness, rain, wind, slick rock and no visibility. Around 4 am the temperature dropped and it started snowing. Finally at 6:30 am as the world turned white around us, we awoke and started packing up. Since we'd both promised an early return to our wives we abandoned hopes for a Daniel summit and headed back through the snow covered landscape.

The white snow covered everything and was beautiful with the underlying red huckleberry bushes. As we made our way down the ridge line past the tarns to Squaw Lake, blue skies started to break, which were either sucker holes or an insult to our foiled plans for an early summit. We heard a few people waking or talking along the trail but didn't really see any one till we almost got back to the car. By 10:30 we were loaded back into the Honda and driving back towards Rosyln. We stopped at the burger joint just out of town for a cheeseburger and shake. By noon we were back into civilization and missing the mountains that we hadn't conquered but been blessed to have spent time within. Next year, maybe I'll pull off that spring traverse of Salmon La Sac on snowmobile and tromp up to Daniel in the snow.

Stats : 7 miles 4001 vertical feet

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