Trip: Darrington - Gardening on Salvia (5.7 A2+) (A Ground Up Scary Darry Adventure!)
Trip Date: 09/05/2024
Trip Report:
WARNING! LOW QUALITY PHOTOS AND FEET PICS!
Back in September of 2024, I teamed up with my homie Ethan @macropipette to go on a ground-up adventure in Darrington. We set our sights on the NE face of Mt Ulalach, an 800-foot slabby face on a granite dome. As far as we knew, the face hadn’t seen a lot of climbing activity, and we later found out some pretty good reasons why.
Ulalach from Squire Creek Wall (Nathan P, Mountain Project)
We departed the car with our packs loaded with the kitchen sink, eventually finding a “good” spot to turn left and begin our shwack up the forest slope. Immediately, we started post-holing in the spongy mixture of thick moss, decaying wood, and tangled roots. After about 150’ of this, I started to realize that this approach was going to suck big time. Fresh off a week and a half bout with Covid, I was drenched and wheezing as we slogged upward through dense brush and ankle-snapping blowdowns.
All smiles for the most mellow bushwhacking of the whole approach!
I have to applaud Ethan for sticking with it with no guarantee of any quality climbing ahead. A final push through brutal slide alder led to a welcome respite, easy travel on a boulder field. While my body was thoroughly worked, I could let my mind relax as we trudged up the final 1000’ to our campsite.
We dropped packs and began surveying the face, and decided that tomorrow we would start our ascent up a flaky left-facing corner/arch and then aim for the steepest, square-shaped part of the face we dubbed “The Box”.
"The Box"
After a few puffs on a spliff and a guide’s ration of some gas station vino, Ethan and I called it a night.
The Climb:
Ethan sorts gear in preparation for our excellent adventure
P1: 5.7 C0 We scrambled up a low-angle ramp to a small ledge, where Ethan took the lead. After moving up some easy terrain into the left-facing corner, he found his way up a right-trending crack that petered out quickly. After questing 20ft up the increasingly blank slab, he was forced to retreat and perform a heady downclimb. After regaining the corner system, he followed it up the loose, flaky arch and pulled the final mossy undercling moves to a well-placed stance for two.
P2: 5.6 C0 I took the lead, pulling a couple of fun moves up and right to exit the arch. A slabby, dirty, and vegetated ramp led to a short but splitter finger crack, then to a gently sloping ledge. I spent probably 15 minutes throwing clumps of dirt and grass down the face, looking for gear to no avail. 15 feet above the nice ledge, I dug out a good cam placement and got a decent pin. I fixed the rope and descended to the ledge for a snack break.
P3: 5.6 A1 R I pushed through a dense clump of bushes just above the anchor, then started up a slab with good edges but no gear. I finally reached the bottom of “The Box”, where the wall started to steepen. I decided to aim for a right-facing corner with a thin crack in the back. Still without options for protection, I slung a small shrub and had a quick laugh. Between me and the corner was a precarious stack of flakes. I looked down and determined that they would miss Ethan and the rope if they fell. I traversed under the stack and was rewarded with a perfect #2 C4 that granted me access to the bottom of the corner. From here, I made good time on cam hooks and pulled up to a roomy stance, the best belay on the route.
Me reaching the bottom of "The Box"
P4: 5.7 A1 This pitch held the best climbing on the route. After moving leftward up flakes, I reached a sequence of free moves on thin, incut holds. This bit was only about 5.7 but so fun, and well-protected with a downward pin behind a flake. Directly above me lay another right-facing corner that I shuttled up with cam hooks. Exiting the corner and wrestling with some bushes, I stepped left to what would have been a 10/10 belay stance if it wasn’t built out of loose flakes with only small gear available between them. In hindsight, the anchor I built was sketchy, and I really should have taken the time to drill a bolt.
Pitch 4
P5: A gumby gets gripped on moderate aid: 5.5 A2+ I stepped left around the large flakes and got established in a hand crack, which led to easy climbing with lots of big loose flakes and blocks. I tiptoed around bushes and looseness before reaching some slab moves below a roof (barely any good gear to this point). I found a good inverted cam hook and poked my head over the top of the roof. My heart sank as I saw a broad, featureless slab. It seemed our relatively moderate line had come to a dead end. Hanging from the hook, I looked around for other options. 6 meters to my right, I saw a pair of thin cracks splitting a slab above, but I would have to nail the thin, dirty seam under the roof to get there. The seam was packed with moss and grit, and the rock looked crumbly. My last okay piece was now well below my feet. I composed myself and started placing a beak, chips of rotten granite fracturing from the seam with each blow.
I tried to block all thoughts of zippering the traverse and taking the big, ugly swing as I put in a foul string of upward-driven blades and beaks. I gingerly inched closer and closer to a shallow 0.3 placement and finally breathed a sigh of relief as I clipped. At this point, I was nearly to the end of the rope, and the drag was so bad I could barely stand up in my aiders. Yelling curses, I pulled on the rope as hard as I could to gain the last bit of slack the rope would yield, then pulled the last few moves up and over the roof. The cracks were too flaring to accept cams or nuts and too shallow to give a solid pin. I decided it would be stupid not to place a bolt, which took the last bit of physical and mental fortitude I had in the tank. I fixed the rope and yelled down to Ethan, then sat at the hanging belay sideways, my left cheek resting against the cool, gritty granite.
The sun was just kissing the horizon next to Whitehorse, and I felt a surge of gratitude for Ulalach for teaching us, humbling us, and allowing us safe passage on its steepest flank. There was another pitch of densely vegetated slab between us and the summit, but I knew our push was over. Ulalach had won.
Ethan: After finally hearing JT yell that he had made a belay, I was pretty overjoyed. It was starting to get dusky, and we both knew we were looking at a lengthy descent in the dark. Cleaning the pitch with my large pack was not an easy feat, and after jugging up hundreds of meters of slab, I was pretty spent. I was thoroughly impressed by the work JT had put in to lead the last pitch, as the roof traverse seemed like quite a piece of work. Once I reached JT, we enjoyed a beautiful sunset and were promptly in the dark on the wall.
Ethan's thoughts about descending in the dark
Bonus Reel: The next morning, I was boiling water in camp. I dropped the Fritos bag I was eating from onto the cook pot, which promptly tipped over and poured boiling water onto my shoe. I started yelling and ripping the shoe and sock off my foot, but I’d already received some gnarly burns. Just my luck!
Free foot pics. Can you guess which approach shoe I was wearing from the burn pattern?
Not too far from the car, we ran into local legend Bill Enger, fresh off completing another fantastic-looking new route (Miracle Ramps 5.8+) on the South Face of the Squire Creek Wall. I sprayed about our GNARLY NEW AID ROUTE… How embarrassing.
This isn’t an FA of the NE face or even remotely close to being a good route, but we named it anyway. Suck it!
Any of you old-timers climb this thing? Tell us about it!
Gear Notes:
Too much junk!
Approach Notes:
Approach to the base of the Squire Creek Wall and climb an actually good route.
