Trip Report
Alpine Scramble - Hibox Mountain
A small and skilled crew took on the "steeper than Mailbox" climbers' trail to Hibox and enjoyed the short T4 summit block, especially the chimney
Christina Black
- Mon, Sep 2, 2024
- Alpine Scramble - Hibox Mountain
- Hibox Mountain
- Scrambling
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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The road to the trailhead had some washboarding and potholes but was overall fine for all vehicles. We made the trip in a minivan. The on-trail portion was well-maintained. There was some water on the Rachel Lake Trail, but none once you head off on the climber's trail. The climber's trail was steep as advertised with some loose rock and dirt as well as lots of fallen trees to climb over in the forest portion. Navigation was relatively straightforward although we did briefly get off the path on the way down as others have mentioned. The summit block was short and sweet. We followed the beta suggested in this Youtube video, which was easy to follow: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fx8AcFEAZLA.
Our group met at Tibbets Park and Ride and was small enough to all carpool together in a minivan -- a fun bonding experience. One trip participant, Erica, provided the whole team with tomatoes and cucumbers from her garden!
We started around 7:45am from the Rachel Lake Trailhead. The parking lot surprisingly only had a few cars even though it was a holiday. The trail was well-maintained and easy and we made it to the turnoff for the climbers' trail in just under an hour. After a short break, we started up the climbers' trail. It was steep as advertised. We encountered a significant number of fallen trees and had to scramble up some rocks as well. Finally, we crossed the talus field and made our way right around Hibox to the scramble route. Once we reached the ridge, it was easy to spot the chimney. The whole group was comfortable with more technical scrambling so we quickly made it through the chimney and the vertical slot to reach the summit around 12:15pm. Assistant Leader Melissa helped with routefinding. We chose not to hang out at the summit as there were a significant number of bugs at the summit, and we noticed some dark clouds potentially signaling rain.
The way down was uneventful, although we did encounter some loose rock and slippery soil that we had to carefully navigate. Luckily, we only ended up feeling a few raindrops. We encountered the same issue as other groups reported that we got slightly off of the climbers' trail on the way down, and had to do a little bushwhacking to get back to the climbers' trail, but it was thankfully short.
Once back on the main trail, we could have made it back to the cars without stopping, but we chose to stop to top off our water by the creek about 1 mile from our cars. We enjoyed cold creek water along with fresh blueberries picked from the trail, and crackers and brie provided once again by Erica. Gourmet trail dining at its finest!
We made it back to the car around 4:10pm, for a total trip time of about 8 hours, 25 minutes, but with a decent number of breaks.
