For Sunday’s hike Pete and I selected Kenosha Pass because it had the best forecast of anywhere within a two hour’s drive. Plus, I’d driven over the pass the day prior and saw no snow so we guessed we’d have an easy hike. “Cone Master” is guidebook author Gerry Roach’s name for the 3-peak link up we’d be attempting.
Pete was able to drive a couple miles past the pass itself towards our first peak, North Twin Cone Peak, to the first switchback at 10,400 feet. We could have driven even further, but still wanted to get in some miles today.
Following the road up we felt it was much warmer than forecasted, but eventually hit colder air and a bit of wind above treeline.
The sun intermittently poked out of clouds that seemed to stay on all the 13′ers in sight. Our little 12,000+ foot peaks were blessed with fewer clouds and less snow.
We left the 4wd road and scrambled directly up to the summit of North Twin Cone Peak for our first summit of the day.
I found a summit register tucked between rocks near the communication tower, but a quick perusal of the contents showed 4wd enthusiasts were the main contributors. Not really caring to add our names to that crowd, we left the register unsigned and headed towards Mount Blaine.
A little rock hoping and some light bushwhacking through willows brought out the comment that the willows in these alpine tundra regions of the Lost Creek were never that bad. There was always a nice trail through them. Of course, we’d have reason to regret that comment later.
However, the rest of the hike to Mount Blaine’s unranked summit went smoothly and we were soon checking out the interesting rocks on the top.
We still had a bit of a hike to the highest peak of the day, South Twin Cone Peak.
We struggled a bit more through the willows at its base – finding a few places where we had to push through and no decent trail existed. Still, it wasn’t bad (yet) and we continued up open slopes.
Knowing we’d have to face into the wind on our descent, we added extra layers before starting off the summit and aiming for the willow mess below.
Here we hit the real crux of the day – willows well over human height that consisted of a few dead-ending passages and lots of boggy terrain. Instead of staying high around them we bullheadedly pushed on through and cussed the resilient plants. Pete finally came up with a full-body tackle method of getting by, but I wasn’t really sure whether the plant or the person came out on top.
Eventually we reached the 4wd road again and finished up the hike in willow-free bliss.
