It was late spring and I was anxious to get out and climb something. With snow still very deep in the Cascades it seemed logical to head east... far east. Horseshoe Basin in the Eastern Pasayten seemed a good choice with Arnold peak a worthy goal. The trail from Irongate through the old burn had snow patches but was encouragely bare. At the end of the burn I ascended the short distance to the first nice camping areas under Sunny Pass, ones likely used by sheep herders in earlier times. I settled in a tree clump with a nice spot for my tent and a large fire ring. Hidden in one tree clump I found an old enamel coffee pot, one that would serve a good sized crew. I wondered if this pot was left over from those sheepherder days. (On a later trip I found that the old coffee pot was gone. Sigh... did someone haul if off as a souvenir?)

In the morning I took off for Arnold under grey skies but soon was postholing even on the partially melted out trail. It didn't look feasible to get to Arnold without an enormous amount of work so I decided to

just climb Horseshoe Mountain, a peak to the northeast of my camp below Sunny Pass. Sunny Pass wasn't sunny as I started up onto Horseshoe's gentle slopes trying to avoid the snow patches. But there were times when I couldn't avoid the snow and I found that some of the seemingly small, innocent-looking patches had a hidden trap. Some of those patches were actually swales (hollows) where the snow had drifted over a depression making it look like the snow was only inches deep when in actuality I would break through into powder snow 3 feet deep. Trying to extricate oneself from these 'traps' was a bit like trying to get out of a hole in the ice on a lake, it wasn't easy and it took a lot of energy.

I finally wised up and began making long detours to avoid those snow patches that looked suspicious and finally reached the high point of Horseshoe Mountain. After all this exertion there was not a chance in the world that I was going to try for Arnold on this trip.

Pictures later