Trip Report
Mount Watson
A scenic scramble with different options for the approach and back
Rio Hoshi
- Mon, Jul 27, 2020
- Anderson Lakes, Watson Lakes & Mount Watson
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Intermittent snow starting from upper anderson lake.
Consistent snow from 5600
Crampons helpful but not necessary. Ice axe or whippet was needed for glissade.
- TH 6:15 am
- Upper Anderson Lake: 7:30am
- Saddle between Middle and East: 9:15am
- Middle summit: 9:35am
- TH 12:30 pm
After doing a C2C ski descent of Shuksan the day prior, Chris and I were looking for some nice relaxed scrambling and looked to doing Mt Watson. The road to the trailhead was in good shape with some minor potholes. There were some mosquitoes at the TH. Chris went in trail runner and I in hiking boots which was good enough around this time.
We took the faint trail up the ridge right a little after the trail starts descending towards watson lake. We followed it until we go to upper anderson lake which was still snowed in despite the lower lake being 100 ft lower being melted out. 
We went counterclockwise and up the mellow slope just right beyond the border of this picture, and traversed around at 5900ft. We didn't do our research and tried to go for the West summit by going up the gully between the middle and west summit. We turned around at the top due to some large moats. There's also a moat forming in the middle of the gully indicated by a deep hole in the middle of the gully that could catch someone glissading if they were unaware. 
We traversed and went up the gully between East and middle peak and climbed the middle peak through the back side. It's class 2 with some exposed class 3 at the top. Getting off the snow and onto the rock was a bit tricky. Then, you will have to squeeze through some tight trees.
After attaining the summit we considered doing East peak(picture to the right) but we didn't know if that was even a peak in the watson group and the steep slope with the trees didn't look that appealing. So we opted to descend towards watson lake. There were a lot of tent trails around the lake which ate some time. Also we met some campers who asked us if we did the Bacon Egg Traverse. If anyone knows what that is please let me know.