White Chuck/SW Face

[cmonster]

Was wondering if anyone out there has climbed the Southwest Face of Whitechuck. I was out there today scoping it out. I had Becky's pictures and descriptions as well the description from the Mountaineers Intermediate Climbing Guide. I gotta say, that the picture and descriptions don't match up. Which gulley is the correct one to get to the start? We looked at the first prominent coulior(leftward trending)that you see when you enter the basin (just left of Becky's indicator for the sw face route). We were not sure that it was the start, as I wouldn't really consider it a scramble. Certainly low 5th. We then moved right (east) to the pond. From the pond, you can see two major couliors. One is wide with a redish dike of really loose rock in it's center. I scrambled up the thing to a big ledge with trees and heather which ended at a pinacle along the ridge. Supposedly, you are supposed to start on the left side here. I wasn't sure if this was the route either. Are you supposed to climb the pinnacle to gain the face? It seemed like this was much to far east, I wouldn't even consider it the SW Face. Anyway, to the left of the coulior with the dike was another coulior that might also be a possibility. The face looks really cool. It would be nice if I could get the really shiz nizzy on the 5.6 route. Any info would be appreciated. Thanks.

[Alpine_Tom]

see: http://staff.washington.edu/gregm/whitershadeofpalechuck.html

[Hiking4Fun]

Yesterday I was up attempting the SW Face of White Chuck and ran into similar difficulties with the Mountaineer description and Beckey's picture/description not matching. We scrambled around for several hours trying to locate the start of the climb with no luck. Does anyone have a better description and/or picture of the route and start of the climb? Hard to come by any beta.