Originally Posted by
HTupolev
I hope nobody minds if I add some photos to go along with this excellent ride report. White Chuck is a 7,000' mountain that towers over the town of Darrington; that may not sound like much if you live in Colorado but the town is 400' above sea level. You can see the summit shrouded in clouds, a large, rocky obelisk.
There is a long, rough dirt road that goes to 4,800', ending in a lovely meadow, with a faint trail. The trail doesn't go very far, about a mile through some trees to a meadow. From there, there's a loose and exposed gully leading to the west ridge. From here, the climbing is straightforward, but more sketchy than words can get across. I invited @
HTupolev to join me on this, thinking it would be a walk in the park, I'm so glad he had the good sense to decline. For more than a mile, the ground is down sloping, and either loose and crumbly, or slabby with pebbles to trip you, all of this with cliffs immediately below. One wrong step and it's all over. I wanted to be on belay, but the route wasn't protectable, there were a few parallel cracks several rope lengths apart.
Here's what the upper mountain looks like.
Exiting the gully and attaining the ridge, Stillaguamish Valley behind us.
Veronica ascending the meadow.
Hi Sloan Peak! You look formidable today.
You can see this spire to the right of the summit in @
HTupolev's photo:
Nick ascending the slabs. Just below the bottom of this photo is an obvious death fall. Don't try this at home!
Looking down. You'd fall about 500 feet if you lost your footing here.
Time to go. I've never fully trusted Camelots, and they were the only protection I could set. One is a micro-cam. Sketchy as ****. I did realize my error before I weighted this. (Nick chose to downclimb, and cleaned the anchor.)
White Chuck Glacier below. There was a mountain goat nearby, but he wasn't cooperative - no pee, no picture.
An eagle soaring over the Stilly G Valley and Whitehorse Mountain, wildfire smoke blowing in from the west.
