Joined: 26 Oct 2007 Posts: 2052 | TRs | Pics Location: Swans Trail, WA
Mon Jul 28, 2008 4:13 pm Clark Mtn - 7/26/08
Clark Mountain has been on my to-do list for over 40 years, when I first saw it from Glacier Peak. Three of us old guys decided to finally do it via the Southeast Route and take 3 days rather than the usual 2.
We left the White River parking lot around 11am Friday and meandered along the river for 4 miles to the Boulder Creek junction. There were no windfalls along this stretch but the open areas were brushy & the bugs were pretty bad. From the junction, the trail switchbacks steeply up the extreme southern shoulder of Clark and in another 2 miles and 1600 ft of good, soft trail, we reached the Boulder Creek ford (4100') at about 3pm (we're slow and it was hot). At this time of day, the water was about knee deep getting across. Fortunately, we managed to leave the bugs down low.
The last couple of miles into the basin, the trail is fairly gentle, open and brushy. There were about a dozen step-over windfalls up the Boulder Creek trail, almost all of which we cleared out on the way down.
There was no one at the Boulder Basin camp (4700') on Friday night so we decided to stop there and stay in the choicest of the few campsites. We were joined a couple of hours later by a climber who had left Seattle about the time we were fording the creek. He headed up Clark the next morning as we were starting and I think he was probably back home about the time we were reaching the summit.
We started up the "sheepherders" trail at about 7 on Saturday. It's easy to find just before the trail starts climbing up to Boulder Pass. This is the Clark High Route trail described in Routes and Rocks and it extends all the way to White Pass.
At 5700', we left the High Route trail where it started to level out and headed NW toward the top of the "One and Only Gully" (7250'). This began with easy heather slopes, then a small snowfield and finally a very steep scree slope to the upper notch. We made the mistake of starting up the steep heather and this got really steep at the top with downsloping rock underneath. The scree proved much easier on the descent.
After catching our breath at the top of the ridge, we dropped down this 250' miserable gully of loose rock and scree. The bottom half is steeper than the top so you don't see it until you're down to it. To add to the joy, there's not a very good exit. You land on the same steep, hard scree that's on the backside. Fortunately, it was only a few hundred feet to traverse to the snow ramp that took us to the summit rock on the SW Ridge. This rock is solid, easy scrambling. We hit the summit around 1pm.
Since we were spending another night at our high camp, we took it leisurely coming down & enjoyed the spectacular views. When we arrived back in camp at 6, there was an overflow crowd of hikers doing the Crest trail trying to find tentsites. The groups we talked to described the miserable time they had from Indian Pass down the endless huge blowdowns and avalanche debris along Indian Creek.
The trip down was uneventful the next morning. It took about 4 hours plus breaks.
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