Mt Rideout // Skagit Scrambling
- Greg Luesink
- Jul 28, 2024
- 5 min read
At the end of July, I set out with Andrea and Ihor to explore more of the Skagit River Valley.
Early in the morning, I met Ihor and Andrea to carpool and we set off towards Hope, turning off at the Skagit Valley exit. Since the 2021 floods, the road had been closed due to seemingly procrastinated repairs. Three years later, the road reopened and my friend Blake and I explored a trail up to Mt Grant and Eaton Lake, but there was much left to discover.
Our objective was Silvertip, considered an "Ultra" for peak baggers due to its prominence above neighbouring peaks and valleys. Unlike Eaton Lake, there was no nice trail to follow to Silvertip and it's lower companion, Mt Rideout. Past forest fires have left the trees charred and the landscape barren, except for the green foliage. The terrain is much drier than our home Chilliwack River Valley, more reminiscent of central BC, despite only being one valley to the East.
We rumbled up the refurbished gravel road and pulled off to the base of the South Ridge. The base of the route was exceptionally steep, and we definitely took the worst way up, requiring clambering up steep vegetation and even some quite steep rocky sections. Certainly a no-fall zone as the gully behind us was unforgivingly filled with debris and it would be a long way to tumble.
Eventually, the gradient tapered off somewhat and we were treated to some views of the mountains to the south as well as the fascinating ecosystem of a post-burn forest. Charred trees and tall grass surrounded us as we climbed higher and higher into the sub-alpine.
Eventually, we reached a point on rocky cliff face on the ridge, which left us the option to divert to Mt Rideout or to Silvertip. As a group, we figured that Rideout was closer so we might as well side-hill around the cliff towards the saddle between the summits.
While it was certainly easier than climbing the cliff, the side-hilling was quite tenuous as the steep grassy slopes didn't allow for any error, any misstep could cause a significant fall down the sheer face. Alas, the three of us were sure-footed and made safe passage across to friendlier terrain. Andrea and Ihor, both successful ultra-runners, were powering up the hills. I did my best to keep up with them, particularly Ihor, who was charging ahead.
We arrived at the base of the scramble to Mt Rideout, which looked quite loose and chossy. Sure enough, we had to be quite careful not to knock rocks onto one another's heads as we picked our way up the runnels and lumps of rock. Near the summit, we reached a particularly spicy section, requiring several exposed moves on a knife-edge ridge to gain easier ground above. Here, Andrea decided to stay put, while Ihor and I scrambled up to the summit. Just over 4 hours after leaving the car, covering 1900m of climbing in 5.5 km, and we were standing on top of the 2445m mountain!
I had cell service on the summit, so I decided to call my wife Jas before heading down. She wondered how we'd be out for, which I wasn't sure. If we did indeed go for the double summit, it was shaping up to be a 12 hour day. In the back of my mind on the way down Rideout, I was more excited to get home to Jas than continue on to Silvertip. We regrouped with Andrea and carefully down-scrambled the loose rock. I was above the others when all of the sudden I palm-pressed on a rock to lower myself.
I felt a boulder the size of my chest crumble loose. I yelled "ROCK!!" down to Ihor, and he ducked just in time as the boulder smashed on a ledge above him, broke into two pieces, and catapulted on either side of his head.
Thankfully, Ihor was completely fine, but we were all a little wide-eyed at the possible outcome. From there, we decided to space out a lot more to avoid a more catastrophic outcome.
After some time, we were down onto grassy terrain once again, and loped our way towards the T junction where the saddle of Silvertip met the South Ridge that we climbed. Quite happily, we discovered a mountain tairn. One small higher pool fed some flowing water into a large one, and we refilled our water supply.
At this point, we had two options: continue up to Silvertip or head back down. After consulting the map, I reasoned that our day would amount to 12 hours if not longer, and if we turned back to the car we could be finished in 8 hours car to car. Ihor was rearing to go, but Andrea and I were less excited about continuing. So, we took a right turn down the ridge back to the car.
This time, we were on the East side of the rocky cliff, which turned out to be slightly more mellow than the other steep West aspect. The steep grass didn't offer much confidence and we had to be careful where we trod to make it back to the ridge proper.
The wildflowers were in full bloom, and I stopped frequently to snap some photos to share with Jas later that evening. The way down went about as expected, except for another unfortunate moment where I almost injured Ihor again.
Ihor was walking ahead of me, and I spotted a charred log to surmount. So, I jumped onto it. As soon as I did, the log set loose and started to roll downhill. I sprinted off to the side to get out of the way to avoid getting roller over. Ihor, hearing a commotion behind him, stood with eyes wide as the log sped towards him. Thankfully, a standing tree stopped the rolling log in its tracks, and Ihor was saved from a certainly painful collision.
Greg!! Are you trying to kill me again?!
I felt quite bad! Two close-calls in one day... my good fortune is that Ihor is very easy-going in nature, although he does enjoy chiding others. Thus, I have not heard the end of the "two times I nearly killed him."
We arrived back to the bluff just above the car and found a slightly better way down, albeit still heinous, loose, and steep. Much to our surprise, a crew of 3 dudes had set up camp with their sprinter van in the gravel spot. I got down first, and one of them offered me an ice cold Gatorade! Absolute legends. They were quite stunned that we had just hiked up higher than their drone was able to fly (it capped out at 500m altitude, while we had just climbed nearly 2000m!).
I asked for a quick tour of the van-build and was gobsmacked at the ingenuity of the owner, as he had thought of some really neat features, and even let us wash our soot-covered hands off with his outdoor shower extension. Turns out he does alpine lake scuba-diving to clean up trash. Ihor, Andrea, and I piled back into the car and made our way back towards home, just in time for dinner. A good day out and a good balanced decision to get home with time to spare.
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