campsite
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On Saturday, Keith, Julie, Fran, and I set out for Flat Mtn. Leaving the parking lot we walked a few minutes on the Drake's Brook Trail, and then a little on a wide groomed ski trail. As the ski trail turned northerly, we started a bearing to the main peak. This took us essentially up the broad ridge coming down from Flat Mtn. The bushwhacking conditions were nothing short of excellent - 6-8" new snow on top of a boilerplate crust. With Keith navigating, he brought us through wide open woods with only an occasional moderately open patch. At approx 3000', I took over the compass reins and immediately brought us into tall spruce h***. Fortunately the boilerplate conditions protected us from most traps. After about 20 minutes of arm wrestling this spruce stuff (Fran beats me at arm wrestling), we abandoned our bearing and turned to the SE in hopes of finding more open conditions on the summit ridge. This proved to be a good move since we soon found ourselves in open woods again. With an adjusted bearing, we headed NE to the summit - always staying to the right of sprucy areas that crept up from W flank of the mountain. The red nalgene summit bottle was easily found (the entries were relatively new - about 7 years or less). However, it is not on the summit coordinates. It appears to be approx 200-300' W of the true summit. On the way back from the summit, we did not retrace our steps through the thick spruce. Instead we followed the edge of the spruce until approx 3200' (almost to the col with the next bump to the SW), at which point we turned N. This time we only encountered about 5 min. of moderate spruce before entering open woods and finding our old tracks.
