Mount Daniel - SE Ridge

14 miles of hiking • 4750' elevation gain • 1 night

I was trying to make late October an annual trip up to the Enchantments, but plans fell through and I still had the time off from work. After looking at many places, I landed on Mount Daniel. It is one of those mountains that I see from Snoqualmie Pass all the time, but often wonder....... What is that large peak covered in snow off to the east. I always check after we get home and it ends up being Mount Daniel. Hopefully this spring I will get to ski up there, so I figured what the heck.....lets go check it out. This was going to be my first solo backpacking in a long time, so I figured what better company than Mindy. We packed up and hit the road...... The weather was supposed to remain calm until Sunday, but there was going to be some cloud cover on Saturday with a slight chance of snow Sunday morning. Little did I know, we would get caught in a white out and snowstorm on Saturday afternoon. We got started early and the clouds looked high with no precip.....then just as we gained the ridge, I caught wind of a familiar scent. Growing up in Colorado I could sometimes smell the snow in the air just before they sky opened up. All of a sudden some low clouds rolled in from the west and snow started falling. It was peaceful and quite beautiful at first, then as the higher we got the wind started whipping and snow began blowing sideways. It was starting to stick and within minutes the scree field and exposed ridge line was covered in white goodness !! Mindy was a trooper, but she reached her braking point.... she was slipping around on snow covered slabs of rock and it was just a little too exposed to risk going any further with her. No summit this time, but we will be back this spring. Such an amazing mountain and I look forward to exploring it more. Cathedral Peak looks like a really great scramble as well.