Ever since the hubs and I spent time snowshoeing on Segelson Ridge, he has wanted to go back and summit Mount Higgins. He’s been out a few times now in hopes of tagging the craggy peak after researching other people’s tracks but without success.
Labor Day weekend was the one weekend the hubs and I had to go adventuring together this summer but of course that meant finding something that didn’t mean dealing with road traffic, crowds, smoke and permits. Darrington fit the bill! We had three ideas: Squire Creek Pass, the old Sauk Mountain and Round Mountain. Turns out Round was PERFECT because we saw no one (almost).
Round Mountain sits up Segelson Road off of Swede Heaven Road just west of Darrington on SR 530. It’s prominence ranks as 8th in the Washington State and 69th in the US but you wouldn’t know it from its short stature. The trail has not been officially maintained for awhile now and the forest service proposed decommissioning it in 2022, possibly because of logging politics. You will find it on Mountaineers.org and SummitPost.org as a scramble, many search it out as a low level winter route from FR 1890 but we had plans for the original trail from Deer Creek Pass.
We took off Friday afternoon and arrived at the trailhead around 6pm. Zero cars, a good sign! Our plan was to see how far we could get before we ran out of daylight and bivy. If we made it to the summit, great. If not, there was the area just below the talus field. The hubs had been here the week before in an attempt for Higgins so he knew what we might find.
The sun was setting by the time we reached Coney Pass (which offers a little level ground). The air was humid and water laden packs had us moving slow, there was NO water on the trail at all so we had to carry two days worth. The trail was soft with duff and the tread was creeping but definitely not the worse I’ve hiked.
We reached the basin below the mountain at 2 miles and 4520 feet around 8pm. No summit for us and it was time to look for level ground. There wasn’t much so my hubby choose the trail itself and I found one little patch of grass to cowboy camp in as none of the stubby alpine trees in the area were suitable for hammocking. We had no worries anyone else was coming up for the night! Settling in, the stars twinkled above as we drifted off to sleep.
The next morning, we rose and began our ascent on the mountain with the skies cleared from smoke. Yay! From this point there was not a defined trail, just faint boot path and scrambling talus. The hubs had some tracks and it was clear the main idea was to climb the boulders straight up and then cross under the ridge at about 4800 feet to the southwest side and up to the summit. We did see a few cairns and blue tape but the blue tape seemed to present itself mostly on the way down. I stashed my poles for most of this part of trip as hands were needed.
What was most interesting (and you will see comments about this if you research the hike) is that it is clear there was a trail at some point but most of it has blended back into the slope except for a few patches and where it was constructed through rock. I was scrambling along, using veggie belay, and suddenly a perfectly placed path ran through talus.
Anyway it took us about 1.3 hours to make the half mile to the summit from our camp, it has been awhile since I have done a true scramble (3 points of contact).
Arriving to the summit at 7:30am and 5360ft, we made it in time to see the tips of other summits in the 360 views at the top. Higgins, Skadulgwas, Baker, Whitehorse, Three Fingers, Glacier, Pugh, Sloan were the most prominent above the early low level clouds. We started up the stove for coffee and breakfast and soaked it all in.
In our talks about this trip, my husband had hopes to scramble over to Higgins once we reached the summit of Round. However, after assessing both the route and time, he decided he needed many more hours in the day than he had thought. So nix to Higgins and hello to hanging out and enjoying the solitude.
Well, the hubs had too much energy for hanging out so about 8:30, he opted for more adventure and took off down the west slope towards “Eye of Round” to see if he could get to Shelf Lake which was visible from our perch. Not for water as we were not staying another night, but just for fun. I chose a more casual morning and pulled out my knitting.
By 10am, the clouds were lifting from the valley floor and had shrouded our landscape in white. I made my way down from the summit just a bit and found the perfect place to hang the hammock and wait for the hubs to return and see if the clouds would lift.
He was back around 11am after visiting Shelf (1300 feet down and then back up with no trail). Obviously not a viable water source but he did meet two hunters which confirmed it was the start of bear season as we were hearing gun fire all morning from the road. Being Darrington, could be a year round thing you never know. The hunters also let him know that the sound of someone laboring to scramble down to Shelf could be mistaken for a bear, FYI.
We ended up waiting (and maybe napping) until 2:30pm but it was clear that the clouds were not going to give us more panoramic views so we made our way back down to the car. We contemplated staying another night because the absence of people was hard to leave but lack of sufficient water had us make the wiser choice. Yes, we kicked ourselves a little for not having him pick more up at the lake but his knees were glad to not have had the extra weight.
It took just over an hour to be back below the talus field and then out by 5pm. Would have been faster but there were SO many berries to be noshed! We also heard no gun fire on our return trip but that didn’t stop us from yelling out often that we were “not bears”.
So even if scrambling is not your thing, the hike to the basin is worth it. This really is a day hike but if you do overnight, remember your LNT. The summit did not have level enough space for a tent but someone could bivy. And there was room for at least two hammocks that I saw.
The solitude and views are worth it!
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