We’re curious about any climbing routes on the unmistakable Squaretop limestone summit, but information is scarce. Rather than try to haul climbing gear up for nothing, we make a hike of it. The Cave Lake state park trail system is newly maintained and well-signed, so we no trouble getting to the pass south of Square Top on the Twisted Pines trail. Then we do a cross country orbit of the limestone cliffs of Square Top. We see a lot of limestone here, mostly undeveloped. There are a handful of cracks, but mostly vertical and off-vertical faces the look quite featured but not easy. On the north side we find half a dozen bolted routes, all of which look pretty hard for us. We get a great hike in, but don’t plan to come back with climbing gear this time around.

Squaretop from the south