East Royce Trail

[Nate]

Since I hiked up East Royce back during Columbus Day weekend I've been wondering, why does the East Royce Trail only go to the first summit outlook, rather than continue on to the true summit and on to outlook beyond that? I found this particularly curious considering it appeared this route had been blazed at one point. Also, does the cairn on the outlook beyond the true summit mark anything in particular, or only the end of the unofficial trail? Finally, for West Royce, where is the true summit? When I was up there this wasn't quiet clear, since the summit was in a cloud and I had about twenty minutes left to get off the mountain before the entire woods would be in complete darkness.

 

[Greg]

I want to say the trail used to go over the top and continue down the other side, but I'm not sure on that. It's now a spur trail to the "summit", the true summit being a bit further than where the trail ends. Lots of herd paths up there, one leading to a Lynx observation post, where hair is retrieved and analyzed. Not sure where the exact summit is, but since I wandered around up there for a while, I claimed it.
Haven't been to West Royce yet.

 

[slowandsteady]

West Royce Summit

Hi Nate, we summited West Royce from the west (Basin Rim Trail) and then went on to East Royce via Royce Connector etc. While we saw no obvious marker or cairn, just trail juncion signs, and we assumed the summit was at the high point adjacent to the old (fire?) tower foundation just off the trail (about 10-15 feet north). We might have missed the foundation except that I saw some steel cable and at the same time I was starting to check it out, a couple of hikers pointed out the foundation as an old tower. Did you find the foundation? If you did, you were probably at the West Royce Summit.

While we were ascending East Royce, an AMC group (looked like a teen wilderness group) were descending, wearing hardhats, as they had been doing maintenance. The obvious trail maintenance stopped at the south summit cairn but a high point was visible north of there so we followed the herd paths to various outlooks to the north terminus of the ridge top. Again, having crossed the ridge we diecided we had bagged the highest point.

 

[Nate]

On East Royce, on the way to the final out look, the main herd path passes by a high outcropping with an X spraypainted on top of it. From what I saw, this was the highest point on the mountain. On West Royce, I didn't see the old cable for the fire tower, but once I reached the trail junction on the summit, (in what little time and light I have left) I gave a quick look around the vicinity and stood on the highest outcropping I could find. That was good enough given the situation.

 

[RoySwkr]

I want to say the trail used to go over the top and continue down the other side, but I'm not sure on that.

That is correct, it was closed due to erosion, but since it had already eroded down to bedrock they could have kept it

There are 4 fire tower footing on/near the flattish top of W Royce

 

[Quietman]

I a little confused by all the heard paths at the top but finally bushwacked to the Western lookout that has a beautiful lookout over the Carters, the best view from the top. I also stepped in more moose droppings than I have ever seen anywhere!