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Trip Report    

Basic Rock Climb - Huckleberry Mountain/East Face

Abundance of berries along the PCT and to the summit. Picked a perfect weather window just in time before the T-storm hits the whole Cascade in the evening.

Jason Hsu Jason Hsu
August 25, 2024
  • Road suitable for all vehicles
    1. Road condition to the trailhead:
      1. We were scheduled to start at 4 pm. Since I live in Everett, I left my house at 2 pm, but still take 1 hour and 40 minutes. Major slow downs are at DT Bellevue, I-405/I-90 interchange, and from North Bend to Hyak. Each added about 10 minutes of delays.
    2. Camping:
      1. The only established campsite area that also includes reliable water source is at Ridge Lake, 6-miles from the PCT TH. It should have enough camp sites to accommodate  group of 6, even with weekend crowds.  
    3. Trail condition:
      1. Connector trail: Follow the trail that goes to Red Mountain/Lundin Peak and then reconnect to the PCT at elevation 3800'. Initial section of this trail is steep and highly eroded. Comparable to Cable Line. Do not follow the winter GPX tracks.
      2. PCT Trail: from the connector trail to the col directly east of Huckleberry Mountain. This section is very well-maintained by PCTA. You will encounter hikers, runners, backpackers, and possibly pack animals.  Steep drop off on the side of the trail from Kendall Peak to North of Kendall Kat walk.
      3. Approach to the bottom of climb: no definite trail marks or beaten path. Follow climber's right of the ridge line. 30-50 of bush whacking is needed before reaching the climbing route. You can easily identity where people walk through the vegetation.
      4. Climbing route: two pitches. 60m rope recommend.
        1. Pitch 1: Mostly class 4. Not a lot of locations for cam place. It does have horns and boulders to sling as the protection. There are big boulders to build anchors to belay students up, after passing the rappel anchor around a tree. Mid size pros used.
        2. Scramble to pitch 2: Follow the ridge and obvious ledges up then traverse left. Scramble to the false summit then down climb to the notch. It can feel exposed for some new scramblers.
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          Traverse between first and second pitch
        3. Pitch 2: Either go straight up (include the class 5, 2-move crack system), or traverse climber left to take the easier class 4 to the summit. We did the direct route to reduce rope drag and save time. It has places for cams. Used 0.4 to 1 BD cams. See below for start of second pitch.
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          Start of second pitch
        4. Rappelling: First rappel is a microwave size boulder being pinned down by 20-30 cantaloupe-size rocks. Multiple slings around the main boulder. Recommend to test the rocks before descending. Scramble the same way back to second rappel  station. It is anchored to a live tree. Rap ring is fairly new. 60m rope can get you back to the bottom. See below for rappel station from the summit.
          IMG_7351.HEIC
          Summit Rap Station

It was the plan C/D for our attempt to do an overnight climbing in the cascades. Fortunately Snoqualmie Pass is the only that is unaffected by this madness. With countless fires popping up everywhere and WSDOT closing all the highway passes, I won' be surprised that we will run out of letters to name our trip.

Friday:

Reaching the TH was not difficulty, except going through several construction areas  on I-90. Once we all arrived at parking lot, we did a quick meeting an inventory check. For some reason, this climb leader call Jason forgot to bring his rope to the trip. Luckily, this climb can still be complete with one 60m rope. We decided that there is no need to turn around. Crisis averted.

One group of hiker told us that there is a black bear sighting about 5 minutes from the TH. Once we started moving, our team made loud noises and loudly called out "Hey Bear!" for the first half miles. On the connector trail to PCT, we unintentionally made a detour from the trail by following the winter tracks and two group member got stung by wasps. After examine the stings and make sure no one has allergy reactions, we continue our journey to Ridge Lake. Even hike on the PCT is pleasant, since the temperature has dropped down to the 60s. We reach the campsites just in time to grab the last flat spots near the Ridge. It is packed with weekend backpackers. We set up our tents, filtered water, ate our dinner, strategized our  climb plan, and went to bed at 9 am.

Saturday:

Woke up at 5 am. After a quick breakfast and packing our climbing gear, we headed out at 6 am. The PCT trail continues to be in good conditions. After wrap around Alaska Mountain, we found we have to drop bout 800' to traverse the saddle to get to Huckleberry Mountain (HBM). Once We reach the  end of HBM's ridge on PCT, we turn left and approach the East Face on open area.  You can see some signs of climber's trails. It sort of avoid all the bush whacking until it's necessary. Following this path was quicker to reach to bottom of the climb. 

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Location to go through the vegetation between PCT and East Face

Pitch 1 was very straight forward. We follow the ridge line and passed two live trees. It's a class-4 scramble. We used rope to mitigate the risks. I set up a belay anchor pass the rappel station, and fixed the lines for other 3 party members to prusik up the rope. The last person was belayed  to the anchor.

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Student prusik up on the fixed line on pitch 1

Between pitch 1 and 2 is the fun scramble. You go up the ridge line, climb under a tree, traverse a rock wall, and then down climb to the notch. I am happy to see the students with us are confident with traveling on such terrain and having a great time with it. There are a few exposed moves on the traverse and down climbing sections. There are good holds and ledges, nonetheless.

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Scrambling down to pitch 1.

Pitch 2 is the money pitch. Every climb should have at at least one money pitch. The variation we took is the one with class-5 moves straight up the wall. There are some loose rocks on top of the climb, so one should be careful to not knock them loose when going over them.

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Money pitch in sight!

We reached the summit around 11:00 am (which is a good time, considering we only have one rope). All of us took a mandatory summit selfie, in case we need to prove we were there. Since we know the storm can be here at any moment, we decided to start doing right after finishing our snacks and break.

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Another peak to the bag!

Rappelling was  very easy. But there are so many slings and webbing, it is very difficult to adding another without crowding the ring itself. No rocks were shifted during rappelling down from the choss anchor. We traced back the same way we came, and rappel of the ridge from the tree rappel anchor. Everyone made it down at 1 pm. High five to everyone!

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Made it back from the summit. High five!

The trip back to Ridge Lake and the trail is uneventful this time, other than plenty of stop-and-go to consume all the berries we can possibly have time for. No bear sighting all the way to  the parking lot. 

T-storm: dodge a bullet on this one. If we stayed around on Saturday, we will be swimming our way back to the cars.