WHITECHUCK MOUNTAIN ATTEMPT 1988

Whitechuck Mountain Route

Whitechuck Mountain Route of my attempt

The "X" marks the spot where I stopped my glissade, fortunately.

In 1988 I was driving on some logging roads southeast of Darrington, in the Rat Trap Pass area, and I looked up at the backside (east side) of Whitechuck Mountain and decided to see if I could climb it. I couldn't, but I got a long way up before I got stopped by the steep, wet rock. I was getting to the place where my limited ability (and gear) wasn't up to the challenge of going further and I knew if I did I wouldn't be able to get back down.

I soon came to that spot and had to tie a small rock to a piece of nylon cord and place it in a crack as a stopper. Then with a short piece of light rope I was able to get back down off my precarious perch.

Another incident happened on this climb that I still think about with a certain amount of trepidation. I decided to glisssade a lower snow slope and was going well when I realized that I could not see all of the runout of this slope. So I 'wisely' stopped and left the snow to bash down through the brush until I could see the rest of the runout.

Right below the spot where the slope steepened and where I couldn't see it from above was a crevasse large enough to have swallowed me. It was in an unlikely spot quite low on the mountain but my caution may have saved my life yet another time.

For a few pictures taken on this scrambleclick here