Meridian is a slow journal of trails, ridgelines, and the hours spent above the treeline. Each issue: one featured route, three lesser-known approaches, and the gear we trust when the weather turns.
Eighteen miles of granite basins, alpine larches, and lakes the color of glacier melt. We started at Stuart Lake trailhead at first light and didn't reach Snow Lakes until the moon was up. The hardest mile was Aasgard Pass � and the most worth it.
A glacier-edge scramble that ends on a moraine of crushed granite. Camp at 7,600 ft and watch the Triplets ridge catch fire at sunset.
A long approach through larch meadows, then a granite cathedral that emerges almost as an afterthought above tree line.
Glacier Peak shows up so cleanly in the lake it feels like cheating. The thirty-mile loop earns it: meadows, river crossings, no easy days.
The mountains are calling, and I must go � but only after checking the avalanche forecast and packing extra socks.Field Notes, Meridian Vol. 09