Cheryl, Helen and I left the trail head for Mystic Lake, then headed toward Froze to Death Plateau. A few miles of off-trail travel and we established a base camp on the edge of the plateau, sheltered from the wind by large boulders.

At dawn we left camp for our ascent of Granite Peak. The weather held and we reached the top after 4 hours of climbing and scrambling. The clouds started to close in as we descended and with 30 minutes to reach our camp we endured a short graupel storm.

We dropped over the edge of Froze-to-Death Plateau down an unnerving slope of loose rocks toward Avalanche Lake. The boulders grew larger as we walked the length of the lake, but we finally broke free and worked out way toward the Snowball Lakes. Just before reaching them the rain started, which made the descent to the lakes a slippery affair.

We followed the drainage down past Princess and Huckleberry Lakes to Mystic Lake where we finally hit a real trail again. After relaxing by the lake we finished our hike out and headed to the Lake Plateau in the western Beartooths.