Trip Report
Winter Scramble - Satulick Mountain
Gorgeous views of the SW aspect of Mount Rainier, as well as a bit of spice at the Pyramid Creek crossing. A beautiful day on this ~13 mile/~3700’ gain Winter Scramble.
Dave Morgan
- Sat, Dec 5, 2020
- Satulick Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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Our party of 5 was expecting a relatively solitary day until encountering a huge gathering near the Longmire Museum. Fortunately for us they were headed for Mildred Point (as two separate groups) and we were able to reduce our contagion risk with a quick departure.
Although the prior month had quite a bit of snow in this area, recent melting/consolidation allowed us to only need snowshoes for the portion between the Kautz Creek crossing and the summit (micro-spikes were used between Longmire and Kautz Creek).
Although the most recent incarnation of the Pyramid Creek footbridge/railing is still structurally sound, it has a substantial amount of melt water running over its center section:
In the interest of dry feet our morning crossing used an adjacent fallen log:
Either works, and our return crossing in the afternoon had a couple of us leaning towards expediency to ‘walk the wet’. You can see a video demonstrating the depth of the footbridge water here.
The remainder of the route is in great shape, and we left the trail near the lower Squaw Lake on a bearing of 215° (true north) to reach the ridge leading to the summit at ~5400’. The views were stunning along this ridge:
We greatly enjoyed a leisurely lunch basking in the sun on the open/flat summit of Satulick:
A great day in the mountains with a total time of 8.5 hours, 4.5 hours for the ascent, an hour long lunch, and 3 hours for the descent. Photos from this and other trips to this venue can be seen here.