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5028 Hits
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72.08% Score
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2 Votes
Page Type:
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Route |
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Lat/Lon:
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43.38330°N / 122.1°W |
Route Type:
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Scramble |
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Time Required:
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Half a day |
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Difficulty:
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Class 3 |
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Approach
See the "Getting There" section of the main page for directions to the trailhead.Route Description
Starting at the left side of the parking area, take the trail marked Indigo Lake Trail. Go .7 miles to a junction of 4 trails. Take the easily marked one called Sawtooth Mountain Trail. This climbs through forest about 2.5 miles. It crests one ridge and then has some heartbreaking elevation loss down to a lava bed before climbing another ridge to a sign marked Sawtooth Mountain to the left. Take this left and follow the faint path about a mile to where it appears the trail will go off a cliff ahead of you (it doesn't, it just goes down and becomes the trail over to Cowhorn Mountain). Just before the cliff/ridge opening ahead of you there will be a short tree Y-shaped tree stump cut near its notch and on the ground before it is an arrown made out of rocks pointing up to the summit. There is also a large rock pinnacle to the left. Turn left here where the arrow points to and hike up a sandy ridge. It leads to the south pinnacle.Scramble up to its highest point. It looks like it's easier to bypass it lower on its left and it's possible but it's easier to head up to it's high point and scramble over it about 2 feet to the left. This leads to a narrow ridge that goes over to the main summit pinnacle.
Once on the central pinnacle, walk across Cascade dinner plate rock towards the dome-shaped pile. The path appears to go up a narrow gully between two piles of dinner plate rock. Don't be tempted to go this way. If you do, it leads to what would be 5th class climbing for about 12 feet on extremely loose dinner plate rock and I would not recommend it as they seem to want to fall out on you. Instead of going up this gully, go about 5 yards further around to the back side and scramble up 3rd class rock to the top of the pile.
Takes about 2 and 1/2 hours up and is 4.6 miles from trailhead to summit with about 2000 feet of elevation gain.