Squire Creek Road - Darrington

[Rainman]

For those that might be interested, I took a walk up Squire Creek on Saturday and viewed all the events that took place this past winter. Mother nature was very busy with new and bigger washouts and landslides crossing the trail. The good news is the road is just great as the FS graded a fresh road bed all the way to the trailhead. The washouts and landslides although impressive do not cause much more problems than normal and someone has even forged a path through. The biggest hurdle is the amazing amount of snow that still remains on all the cliffs. Squire Creek Wall has the least, but there is still a fair amount of snow on higher ledges to not make any route safe just yet. Wait 2 or 3 more weeks if we get warmer weather before attempting any climbs there. The first three pitches of Slab Daddy are buried in snow and lots of avalanche debris on the way to the Illusion Wall. The log crossing Squire Creek to approach the Illusion Wall did survive. Hiking in to Waterfall basin was essentially snow free until you crossed the creek into the basin itself. About 2 to 4 feet of consolidated snow made the walk-in very easy as all the brush was buried. The Roan Wall still has a giant cornice on top, don't even think about climbing on the wall until that baby comes down. The avalanche cone below the Roan extends all the way from the creek bottom to just about the top of the second approach pitch. It will be along time before it's snow free. As usual, the Waterfall buttress is already snow free and could be climbed at any time however, the snow at the bottom is extreme. Here is the most impressive display of winter's fury I have ever seen! The basin below Three Fingers is filled with more snow than I could have ever imagined. If anyone has ever been to the basin in summers snow free days it would be worth a trip to see it now. Unfortunately, I didn't have a camera with me to show it all but judging from my pictures from summers past, the snow is about 70 feet deep in front of Martha's place and close to 200 feet deep at the base of the walls! Martha's isn't completely buried but the uphill side of the boulder has snow within two feet of the top. The downhill side is buried to within 15 feet of the top and the overhang is at snow level. The bivi site underneath is completely buried all the way to the back. No camping here for some time to come. For all the talk about glaciers receding world wide I wonder if we've got a new one being born here?

[hanman]

Wow Rainman-

 

Those snow totals for the cirque are just crazy. Don't think we've ever seen a CORNICE on Roan. Looks like we may be snow caving it this year

[mountainmatt]

Eeek gads! Having camped up there, its hard to imagine that much snow up there, especially when its not that high in altitude. Really late season this year I guess.

 

Thanks for the update!

 

 

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[JasonMLawson]

Thanks for the update Rainman...now that another month has gone by, does anyone have any more recent updates on Squire Creek Road, approach trails, and/or Squire Creek Wall conditions? Any ascents of Slab Daddy yet this season?

[mountainsloth]

There is still some lingering snow high up in places like chicken shit gully and some ledges but otherwise things are snow free, road is quite walkable as is the trail up to the Illusion wall.

[mountainsloth]

Most of the wall was drooling here and there but things are climbable out there.