Trekks and Travels: Diamond Peak Wilderness Backpack Loop 5-7 June 2015

Ann and I backpacked this 26 mil loop on a warm weekend. Temps at night were 40 and 50 degrees, no rain, clouds only on the first day. Mosquitoes were bad in some locations, but we were prepared. There was a lot of snow on the trail at elevation on the north side of Diamond Peak which made hiking slow going because of route finding, falling, and just plain hiking in slushy snow, sometimes deep slushy snow.
Day 1: Shelter Cove Trapper Creek Trailhead to Mountain View Lake on Crater Butte Trail - 8.7 miles/2000ft gain
Day 2 Mountain View Lake to PCT, flank Diamond Peak, to trail to Divide Lake and Cascade Divide pass. 9.7 miles 1467 ft gain (this section is where we had difficulty with snow - 5 miles of it especially on the north side of the peak)
Day 3 Divide Lake back to the PCT to Lils lake, then off trail to Yoran Lake, following the Yoran Lake trail back to the Trapper Creek TH, to the car. 8.3 miles/705 ft gain

Beautiful, beautiful hike. We praised God for His provision of a lone hiker who had hiked towards us and left his footprints in the snow over the most difficult section to navigate. It saved us a lot of time to have those prints to follow! We left him some prints to follow too, but he had the harder job of route finding.

I only have the map for Day 2 because I had no way to charge the phone to map all three days. Working on that!
Day 2 map