yesterday i set out to hopefully summit the north helen butte, which is the taller of the two and behind the shorter south butte. i knew it'd be pretty melted out, but NOAA maps said i'd be on snow while on the ridge that leads to the butte so i brought crampons/mountaineering boots/ice axe. while driving i was eyeing sauk mountain's completely snowless peak and worrying i didn't need the heavy gear, but i set out with it anyway. i made good time to the ridge that leads to the butte, passing by a talus slope that lived up to my mental nickname "pika corner" (heard but not seen), and sure enough there were patches of snow that my boots and crampons helped out with.
i was delighted with the south butte scramble to its false summit, it was really fun and there were lots of blooming phlox and other signs of spring! i even saw a paintbrush (castilleja). although the buttes look exposed, they're fairly "thick" so you don't feel the exposure while scrambling. unfortunately it was pretty socked in so i was robbed of views of baker, shuksan and other peaks in the vicinity (would be true for the rest of the day as well, but i ended up counting this as a blessing later). i could see myself using the false summit of the south butte as a destination in the future.
to get to the north butte, you have to navigate around the northwest side of the south butte; you actually drop down a couple hundred feet to get to the col that connects the buttes. i had been on south faces which only had patches of snow that were easy to traverse (would have been appropriate for microspikes and trail runners), but when i got to the slope i was greeted with a steep icy slope. i was very grateful to have crampons! although i had taken put them on and off so many times it was getting exhausting. after doing a combination of climbing and glissading i made it to the col, where i was shocked to hear and see some hoary marmots!! i had no idea this area had them. this was at 5000'.
the climb up the north butte was briefly fun like the south butte, but quickly became a bushwhacking nightmare, made a lot worse by all the gear sticking up out of my pack. the final step looked bad, either a class 3-4ish move with more exposure than i was comfortable with or a really unpleasant snowy/icy bushwhack that i just didn't have the energy for, so i turned around. i was REALLY close! i made it to 5428', the summit was 132' higher. on a map it looks like a rounding error.
the trip back was mostly uneventful, other than that regaining the icy chute was exhausting. this is where i was grateful to have the sun behind clouds all day; had it warmed up i don't know if i would have been able to go back on this route. it made for good cramponing. after finishing the climb it was snowing just a little and felt like winter, but i heard a frog croak a few times (?). i think they hibernate in the snow?
it was at this point i realized i had a bigger outing on my hands than i originally hoped and i was dreading the rest of the trip down. however, to me the highlight of the trip was the downclimb off the south butte. the sun was starting to break through in spots and it made for some incredible views. i experienced the totality of type 2 fun in a single moment, both regretting my decisions and also begrudgingly reflecting on how amazing the area is.
from my turn around point, getting off the ridge took an hour and a half or so due to the bwhacking and some poor routefinding, and i was back to the car around 7:30pm (having set out at 7:52am). the combination of poor, highly overgrown climber trails, beautiful rocky scrambles, and snow travel made for a real adventure though! didn't see anyone all day, but it's completely possible hikers did just the cow, starting after me and making it back to their cars before i could see them. saw lots of banana slugs and got a thrush hat trick (varied, hermit, swainson's) out of it. i might be cow'd out for awhile, but i could see myself trying this again in the fall.
stats: 15 miles, 11 hours 30 minutes, 2 peanut m&m packs, a ritter sport, and some unknown quantity of shot bloks consumed