Such a fun day! I ran the Wallowa River Loop FKT the day before so the legs had some fatigue from the start. Had to keep it steady and putter along up to Ice lake. It’s very well-graded and runnable the whole way. Mountain goats greeted me at the lake, I chatted with lots of nice folks and got to pet several dogs living their best life.
The climb up to Matterhorn was great— there’s a decent trail the majority of the way. Tagged the summit—took tons of photos and video and then headed for the traverse. I stayed along the ridgeline and climbed up to the subpeak in between the two summits. I realized there was track that skirted this high point down below that would have probably been faster. Oh well. The traverse is mostly straightforward but there are several scramble sections that you need to be comfortable with the exposure. After tagging the summit at Sacajawea it’s off to the scree glissade. I was glad to have a track for the descent because it was rather committing. The upper part is the slickest and steepest. It mellows out pretty quickly though and felt much faster than back tracking all the way down Matterhorn. Looked at my watch and realized I had to really hustle back to grab the FKT. That made for a fun run down from Ice Lake!