Alone & Off-Route： Just the Way I Like it on Mt Maude, WA

This is Mount Maude, which at over 9,000 feet tall is Washington's 16th highest summit. It's also a smooth and I'm trying to get all 100 by the end of the year. It's normally an easy walk up or at least so said of people climbing in September. It's June right now and I had a nice long snow ramp which I couldn't resist which dropped me off into some gullies and uh I missed cliff faces. Well that's a dead end. I'm here as part of a four-day NTF slam where tomorrow we'll try to climb Mount Stay tuned. Here I am hiking up the Chihuahua River Road. It's about seven miles to go to make the Phelps Creek Trailhead. It's the one I need to access Furnow, Seven Finger Jack and Mount Maude. They're all smooths. I could try to wait for the road to open or I could just do it right now where I have enough food and time to make it for a three-night trip. So today I'm going to try to make it as high as I can to Leroy Basin. Tomorrow set up my hike camp in the basin, try to climb Mount Maude and then on Sunday I'll try to climb Furnow and traverse over to Seven Finger Jack and then descend and then exit all the way home on Monday. I'm hoping that the snow is in great shape to make easy cramponing up steep slopes. We shall see. Spending time in the Washington Cascades right around the solstice. So much sun. Everything is green. There's still snow, running water. Couldn't be better. Now it's time to get in the zone. There they are. It sure looks like Seven Finger Jack on the left which let's make one straight ahead Mount Maude. Just making it to Phelps Creek Trailhead. I'm a little jealous. Two hours 20 minutes on the 7.2 mile road walk. Just about a thousand feet gained. Yeah, not too bad. Bonus miles. Yikes. Well, we're definitely getting somewhere and somewhere feels like camp. Looks like home tonight. All right, nice and early porting a river. I got moving out of camp at 7 a.m. Now I'm about a third of the way up to Leroy Basin Trail and it's steep and there's a lot of blowdowns. But none have been so bad. Although this one, I got a familiar in this one. All right, where was I? Yeah, about a thousand feet to go to make it to Leroy Basin where I'll be camping for tonight. I'll drop my load and then I'll head up to climb Mount Maude. This is Leroy Basin. Looks pretty epic. Now that I've established camp, setting off to climb Mount Maude. First step is to traverse way under the mountain, get to the south shoulder and find my way up. Well, this is why I brought crampons. I think it'll make it pretty easy. Hey, let's put your feet back there. Well, I can't resist a long snow ramp. Looks too fun. I am way off the normal route. Figure out when I get up there, I'm sure we'll go. Well, I am invoking freedom of the hills on this one. Definitely off the standard route. Snow ramp was fun, felt pretty safe. And now I'm in this little gully that looks easy enough to scramble up and even better has water in it so I could refill. I think after maybe 300 to 500 feet going up this sort of rock, I'll be back on the main route. But yeah, should be fun. Well, that's a dead end. Almost to the GPS track that cuts across the mountain up ahead 50 feet. Having fun though. Blocky scrambling. Just got to be aware of the loose material. Well, I'm on the GPS track now. Guess it's not that easy. Sounds pretty cliffy. I don't know. But almost at the 8,000 foot mark where I meet the really true main trail. There it is. That's the summit up there. Sure was pretty easy, but it's getting pretty winded. Must be the altitude. 88,700 feet. Mod's a big one. That's the summit right there. Let's finish it up. All right, we're on these rocks. I'm on the summit of Mount Maude, eating some cheese and crackers. Took me about three and a half hours to get here from Leroy Basin. Definitely didn't take the easiest route, but maybe I took the most fun route. The views are just out of the world on this peak. It's just incredible. From Adams to Rainier to Baker. So for now, and Seven Finger Jacks to the north. And everything is just so wonderfully snow covered. Sitting in Clark Mountain, which I climbed with Alex a few years ago. You can see so many mountains from here. And everything looks so cool with this clear summer blue skies with few clouds and no smoke. But the star of the show is obviously Glacier Peak. One of the best days in the mountains to be here. Washington State, why ever go anywhere else? Just love it here. These mountains. All right, just gotta get on the snow and then I can cruise on down Freezer Pass and up to Freezer Peak. And I think it's a pretty reliable route. I'm not sure about going along this ridge further. This is actually where the normal summer route goes. Here we go. Pretty fun. I'm on the summit of Freezer. 8,032 feet. Only took me a few minutes up from the Freezer Pass. So totally worth it. Not only are the views of Maude really awesome down to Icy Lake. It's also Washington's 184th tallest mountain. So if I ever go for the top 200, I'll be well on my way. Maybe I took the wrong line, but from here to Freezer Pass is awful. Super loose everywhere and steep. I'm going to say the Freedom of the Hills pursuit today worked out pretty well. I definitely took a slightly harder route than normal, but I'm not sure there's any easy route because the normal route conflicts with snow. Who needs skis when you got boots? Oh gosh. So I'm going to be coming over Seven Finger Jack tomorrow and I'll descend that snow field. So cool to see all these larches here. Leeroy Basin Campsite. Pretty nice. The route tomorrow is going to go up the left, cut back, cross over that coal and then go down into a basin and then climb for now.