From Head for the Hills....:Pintler Traverse-Day #2-Base of Mt. Howe to Carpp Lake Trailhead

We awoke early the next morning following a sleepless night at the nameless lake near the base of Mt. Howe which Cody H. coined “The night of the Griz” Lake. We had decided to get up before sunrise in hopes of a quick breakfast and camp pack up before making the decision to push on. With a night’s rest, mentally and physically, we eventually came to the conclusion to push on to Carpp Lake Trail head. Rather than head back up and over Little Rainbow, over to Goat Flats and around the tricky climbing to Kurt Peak, which we had originally planned, we opted to take the faster route and drop down to the Seymour Lake CDT Trail. We figured we could make good time on the trail and push to Upper Seymour lake. From that point we would gain the drainage to the unnamed lake at the head of the Queener Peak Basin at which point we would gain the connection ridge between Kurt and Queener Peaks.

Queener Peak from Base of Mt. Howe

So, we set out from the unnamed lake at the base of Mt. Howe through sizable boulder fields until we were in a beautiful, lush, forested area eventually wandering our way to the CDT trail. From the tie in
we made great time briskly walking up the beautifully manicured trail. Its amazing how nice trails feel after a full day of boulder walking. Soon we made it to Upper Seymour Lake, a first time for me. We took a quick look at the lake which seemed a beautiful place to camp at some point. We kept with the trend of quickly heading further up the basin.

Upper Seymour Lake

The walking from Upper Seymour further up the drainage was breathtaking in the morning light through big, open alpine meadows. At one point we decided to climb up a small water fall area on to a rock bench as opposed to continuing up the drainage. As we neared the top Cody C. noticed a big healthy bear sitting under a tree along the route we almost took. It was neat to see the bear from a distance out of reach, however he did not seem impressed or scared of us, only slightly aggravated by our presence. We were lucky to zig instead of zag on that navigation decision. A little bit more walking and we soon walked into the outlet of the unnamed lake at the base of Queener Peak. The beauty of this little lake was unmatched, and it looked as if it had been built by hand with perfectly rock lined walls and grassy meadow banks extending to the tree line. Not only was this one of the highlights of the trip for me, it was likely one of the most beautiful pieces of scenery along the whole trek in my opinion. Although we were on a quick timeline for the day, none of us could argue with spending some time here. We refilled water, took off our shoes and snacked at the banks of the gorgeous area for nearly 45 minuets with the sun slowly warming our bodies. I would love to be there when the Western Larch trees are changing colors as the scenery would be out of this world.

Healthy Boy

Unnamed lake below Queener Peak

Reluctantly we packed up and headed further into the drainage to the shortest section of the saddle between Queener and Kurt peaks. A quick climb of some fun, rocky couloirs and we made the saddle. A bit of fun, quick scrambling found us on the shoulder of Queener peak walking the big open tundra to the view of our approach to Fish Peak. We did not extend out to the true summit of Queener, it being a decent sidetrack off course and we had a sizable amount of country to still cover for the day. Walking down the back side of Queener took longer than I imagined as the vertical drop is decent to access the approach to Fish Peak. We eventually made it to the bottom where a quick conversation happened regarding the approach to Fish Peak

Up to the Kurt-Queener Saddle

Unnamed Lake from the Kurt-Queener Saddle

Kurt Peak (Left)  and Kurt Peak Saddle. Mt. Howe (Center)

Gaining the Queener Ridge

Queener Ridgline

Look at Fish Peak in the distance with approach ridge

Fish Peak has a prominent ridge connecting it to Queener, but you must gain a decent amount of vertical to a high point in the ridge which you eventually loose to reach the final approach saddle to the summit. We originally planned to traverse this ridge at the saddle elevation however it turned out to be a tedious effort so we pointed it uphill following the true ridge line. More boulder walking eventually lead us to the high point where we dropped a few hundred feet to the final approach saddle. In hindsight it would have been a beautiful, easy walk to just come directly up the drainage to the east and tie into the final approach saddle. After regrouping at the saddle we made a quick push to the top of Fish Peak with more of the same boulder navigating, eventually meeting at the summit cairn. From the summit amazing views of West Goat Peak, Hicks Lake, and Warren Peak came into view. We could also now see our route out to Cutaway pass which looked deceivingly close. From the summit of Fish we were surprised how vast the connecting ridge line was. We continued down the ridge which consisted of scree and boulders.

Fish Peak from top of approach ridge

Top of the Fish Peak approach ridge-Queener behind

Top of Fish Peak-Hicks Lake below-Warren (right)-West Goat (left)

West Goat

Warren

Descent off Fish Peak

Descent ridge off Fish Peak-unexpected point left of center 

Fish

We soon reached the saddle to an unnamed point which we realized we likely had to climb or traverse to reach the trail to Cutaway pass. It was not until we reached this point we realized it was there.
When looking at Fish peak from Queener this small peak is hidden from view and appears to be a clean ridgeline from Fish peak to the saddle which ties into Cutaway pass. It turns out this little point is lined with cliffy terrain and boulders on the backside which makes a traverse challenging at best, and if you climb it and then down climb it leads to a boulder field on the last few couple 100 feet. This unknown obstacle sucked up quite a bit of time but we eventually regrouped at the saddle near the Cutaway pass trail. At this point we were starting to get low on supplies but at least we felt some satisfaction that we were about to finally be on trail. A little more walking along the ridge and we tied into the Cutaway Pass Trail.

top of unexpected point

looking back at the unexpected point.  Fish peak (far point in the distance)

Cutaway Trail becomes visible

The trail was nice to walk on, but slightly rockier than I anticipated. I am amazed that someone built that trail. What a crazy effort! Regardless it was nice to be walking on a trail as our joints had become tender at this point. We put our heads down and continued up the trail eventually meeting up at Cutaway pass. The views from the pass, especially of Warren Peak were phenomenal. With only about 2 hours of light to spare we continued walking. We could see the trailhead way down in the basin. It looked further down then we anticipated and we soon found out the trail to Carpp Lake Trail head from Cutaway pass is by no mean a direct hike. It meanders around the ridgeline from the pass down one long switchback followed by numerous, very long mellow switch backs down the drainage. It was painful to walk and feel as if we were only dropping a few 100 feet every miles or so. Eventually the trail turned in what seemed like the wrong directing heading back towards Warren Peak. We were all pretty mentally fried at this point and it was very aggravating to feel we were walking the wrong direction. A little further and it eventually tied into the trail which heads out to Carpp Lake Trailhead. A lot more walking and a few run in's with some cows and we eventually spit out to the shuttle rig, cheering, while tired and excited at the same time, happy to have completed this traverse.

Trail to Cutaway Pass

Queener to Fish to Cutaway Pass Trail

This tour was one of my biggest outings to date. I had a pretty good idea of the access and route from previous scouting day trips, but in some of the sections previously untraveled, I definitely underestimated the challenging walking conditions. These mountains are rugged and likely ¾ of this traverse were off trail on rock just big enough that running and or very fast travel is not really an option. I would have liked to tag on the Little Rainbow-Goat Flats-Kurt Peak section as planned, however I don’t think we could have completed the traverse with our time frame had we taken this option. I think that a link up from Barker Lakes TH to Storm Lake TH in a day would be a committing, big, fun one day outing however adding on Mt Haggin is quite the backtrack. I also think the link up from Storm Lake Trailhead to Carpp Trailhead would be another amazing long day trip worth repeating. Regardless it seems hard to walk fast through these mountains and their loose rock. We discussed adding on Warren Peak prior to the trip to extend the trip, however the ridgelines don’t seem to cleanly connect to Warren peak and quite honestly it would add a sizable effort to add on either West Goat or Warren. I think better loops would exist in just this section of the range alone which seems to be rich with trail systems. This was an amazing, physically and mentally challenging outing which I will never forget. It was nice to check it off the list after years of dreaming of it. If I am ever to do it again however I would add an additional day of travel as it would be nice to spend more time in some of these beautiful corners of the range.

By the numbers we completed this traverse in 47.5 hours car to car with two overnight camps. The total distance was somewhere along the lines of 31-32 miles with somewhere around 13-13,500 vertical feet of climbing.