Cashmere Mountain, one of the highest peaks in the Icicle Creek drainage
Cashmere Mountain is one of the highest peaks in the Icicle Creek drainage. The route to the summit is 95% on trail, with some class 2-3 scrambling and navigation at the end.
We camped at the trailhead the night before, and the lot is reasonably large. We started at 5:15 am and followed the trail all the way to Windy Pass. The trail is in good shape up to the Little Eightmile Lake turnoff, then gets bushy, but it finally clears as you approach Lake Caroline.
From Windy Pass there is no official trail, but the path is still clear on the traverse across the north side of the main peak. The traverse goes further than you might think. Don't climb up a gully too early, where you can easily get off route. I recommend tracking your GPS to confirm where you want to climb up, because you can't really tell which gully is correct from below. If you are on route, it never exceeds class 3.
On top we enjoyed some views, but the western Cascades were buried in thick clouds. We traced our track back, and on the way down I saw a party using the shortcut. We got back to the trailhead uneventfully at 6:30 pm, 13 hours after starting (we are slow), only to get stuck in US 2 traffic and crawl back to Monroe at 11 pm.
