On Saturday, Fred, Fletcher, Selena, Josh and I met up for a hike up Prairie Mtn outside of Darrington. We got an early start to hopefully avoid the hot sun turning the snow into mush later in the day. We drove up the Suiattle River road, which has had a lot of down trees that has been cut over the winter. After crossing the bridge, we took FS road 25 to FS road 2510 where we'd find a place to park at the old road 2511.
At about 100 yards, a creek needed to be crossed and we found a few logs up stream to stay dry. Just past the bend in the road, we headed off into the woods for Prairie's NE ridge. There was a little blowdown but very little brush as we hiked through the forest. We hit snow a little below 3000' and put snowshoes on a little after that. Travel went very well in the shady trees. At point 4734, the views started to open up and we got our first view of Prairie.
Prairie Mtn
We stayed just left of the ridge to avoid cornices. The snow was starting to get a little soft in the sun but was pretty stable. For the last push to the summit, we decided to stay in the trees and go up some steeper snow to the summit. Another option would have been to head towards the South ridge but we didn't like the steep open slope. The views from the summit were better than expected. White Chuck Pk in particular looked amazing from our summit.
Baker
Fletcher at the summit
Josh, Selena and Fred at the summit
Three Fingers and Whitehorse
White Chuck
We didn't stay too long at the top even though it was warm with no wind. We wanted to get down before the snow got bad. We mostly went down the same way and were back to the cars earlier than we expected.
when you're almost back to the car, just walk through the creek!
It was a fun day out with the crew with some great views from the summit.
5 miles
4700' elevation gain
Super fun short day. The perfect peak for the a day with high avy risk. Stoked that I’ll be looking up at that thing in a different light every time I drive through Darrington from now on.
Interesting name. Is there a flat meadow with grass in the summer?
Hitchman's Place Names of Washington says "The name was chosen by Sauk Prairie settlers because of the beautiful prairie at the mountain's base." The Sauk Prairie was at the confluence of the Sauk and Suiattle Rivers. The First Peoples had eight longhouses located there but had their ancestral land taken from them in the 1880’s by settlers using the Homestead Act to acquire the land.
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