White Chuck Bench looks like a long abandoned trail that the forest service is trying to bring back to like. Evidence of heavy brush clearing and blowdown cutting are readily apparent in the first mile. In fact we saw 3 forest service trucks at the trailhead. Getting there is easy. Go south on the Mountain Loop Highway from Darrington. About 6 miles from the main Old Sauk trail entrance cross first the Dutch Creek bridge and then the Old Sauk bridge. Immediately to the left is a brand new (and very decorative) bridge followed by a parking lot and two outhouses. Go up the gravel road about a mile or two past a big log dump to a parking shoulder and see the trailhead sign. This trail follows the edge of the bench with some keyhole views of White Chuck and Pugh. The tread is littered with detritus and leaves but it is easy enough to follow. Almost zero altitude gain as it wanders through forest to join an abandoned logging road which has many blowdowns. The trail goes about a mile and a half before it comes to a handsome bridge. That's as far as we got and it does not appear that any work has been done beyond that.

HikerJim (Kuresman), Alexi and I took a jaunt to this trail, inaccessible since the 2003 floods. Alexi spent a lot of his kid-hood on the forest service roads around Darrington, and was excited to hike this trail again after we learned Dan Creek road is driveable to the trailhead. The beginning of the trail is unpleasant scraggly trees growing from recent logging (5-8 years...?). The trail hasn't been maintained since 2003, so this portion is overgrown with overcrowded trees - you can't see the tread, but it's clear - just shuffle your feet and go where there's no resistance - that's the trail. If you feel resistance, that's not the trail. In about 15 minutes you're in real forest. Once in the forest proper, the tread is in excellent condition. There is a lot of blowdown in the mere 2 miles we hiked - some a little annoying to crawl over and under, but none difficult. After Black Oak Creek the blowdown is more frequent. We didn't go far, as we had time constraints, but did drop down to the river about a half mile beyond Black Oak Creek and poke around the massive log piles laying on the now-beach (once-riverbed). The river re-routed itself. We were approximately opposite the first washout on the Whitechuck Road when we turned around. The trail seems to enter bigger trees at this point, the beginning of the unlogged area???? I had never done this trail before, but would like to explore more. The opposite trailhead is off the Whitechuck Road, and that portion of the trail, from what I've seen from the Whitechuck road recently looks like it may have washout issues. Once the bridge over the Sauk to the boatramp is repaired (this summer) and better access is restored, hopefully this trail will recieve deserved attention. It's a very pretty trail. By the way, if you get to the boatramp parking lot, you've missed the Bench trailhead - the sign is not visible for drivers of Dan Creek road - because it was accessed from the now-broken bridge, the print is on the bridge side of the sign. It's just before the gravel-pit/piles of new logs.

Attempted to do the White Chuck River Road near Bedal, WA. Parked at road start on Mt Loop Rd. Definitely needed snowshoes, but the snow was awful in a way that made the hike slow going and not too fun. Nice day though, and was only wearing my t-shirt. Took an hour to get to the wash-out at 1.7 miles. Attempted to go around using the bypass trail but it kinda petered out 3/4 of the way and got stuck with my snowshoes attempting to climb over trees fallen branches etc. When I switched to yak-trax, I just fell through the snow and couldn't make any more progress to the other side. Well I could have, but I lost interest, knowing the hike wasn't gonna get any more fun. Two people in cross-country skies made it to the other side (I was following their sink holes on the bypass trail), and I think if I had those I would have continued on. But I was wearing only hiking boots and my feet were getting soaked falling through the snow and I was getting muddy climbing on the mud patches that were exposed. Between getting stuck on the bypass trail and walking back, it took me two hours to get back to my car. Strange thing I noticed was that at certain points along the road, there were these air pockets of really warm air that made it feel like spring or early summer. Wicked awesome, IMHO. Anyway, I think i will wait to late spring when the road melts and the bypass trails gets cleaned up a bit and the river drops and then I will mountain bike the whole trail as conditions allow me.

Having the week off I picked today to go up and climb Whitechuck mountain. Having gotten excellent information from the nw hikers website as how to get up to the trailhead and climbing beta I set off from the trailhead at 9:00 am. Starting at near 5000 ft. is a real plus. A good trail follows the ridge with good views. In what seemed like a bit over a mile you are at the gully between the nw summit and main summit. A climbers path leads off to the right after climbing up the gully for a ways. Today was a excellent day to climb this mountain as conditions were bone dry. As you may of read from other reports that when the trail is wet and/or snow covered you would not want to slip along the traverse on the upper part of the route. As Becky says of this route ""a slip would be more than serious"". Upon reaching the notch on the ridge,just befour the last summit scramble, I paused for a long minute comptaplating the 15' vertical down climb to the bottom of the of the very narrow notch. Fortunatly the rock formation offers good holds to the bottom. The short scramble on the other side puts you on top. There wasn't a wisper of a breeze today as I as enjoyed the 360 degree view,having made the summit by 11:00. I could even see my car from the summit not to far below. The climb back down was uneventful and I was back at the car in short order. I found some scat on the trail about 1/2 way back to the car. Talking to someone about this they said it might have been a cougar. That could of made this trip real interesting! I did have a big black bear bolt out of bushes though just after I started the drive back down the road. It narrowly missed hitting my car and then ran down the road for a few seconds befour darting back in the bushes. Amazing how fast he was. All in all it was a great day for a climb. I'm 53 years young now and it's good to know I can still enjoy doing this. Ps. I could not find the summit register. I had read an earlier report that there was one. I would like to hear from someone to find out where it is and if it is still there. I can't believe that someone would take it.

Our small group was curious to view the latest adjustments to the Whitechuck road and trail system that have been created by the November 06 floods and other events. For an interesting report from July of 06 view the Report by G. W. Hayduke(http://www.wta.org/~wta/cgi-bin/wtaweb.pl?7+reports+displayM+2006070842). Hayduke’s effort was truly a marathon adventure. We drove 1.8 miles up FS road 23, parked at the barricade and continued traveling by bike. Carrying a bike over the washouts along the road is challenging, increasing in inverse proportion to the length of one’s legs, but for a day trip with minimal packs, a bike seems worth the extra effort at the places where one needs to lift and carry the bike. After passing the first washout, one should watch for the road that ascends on the right, take that for about 1/3 mile and follow a user made path that circumvents the second washout. From this point there is still more than 7 miles of road to the Whitechuck trailhead. One new complete washout of the road must be climbed around just before Stujack Creek. At Stujack creek it is interesting to see what remains of an old wood structure culvert box. This is a knee-deep ford. There are a number of logs and treetops along the road, some of which we improved to ease passage. The road has also slumped completely or narrowed in many places, but these are more easily managed than the three major washouts in the first part of the road before crossing Stujack creek. Once on the Whitechuck trail the route is passable to Pumice Creek, with a very significant slump that must be climbed around, and a number of trees down. At pumice creek we descended to the river bottom, but fast water and impassable cliffs stopped any thought of continuing at river level. (There is essentially no trail left from here to Glacier Creek, and perhaps more trail dissappeared after the November flood.) The alternative of climbing several hundred feet to the top of the slope was more than we wanted to manage, and we took a late lunch and explored the detritus of logs and rocks, finding remnants of Kennedy cabin, and several rocks that would float. After seeing the amazing changes in this river valley within a small 10 mile section, it is perhaps most surprising that roads and trails survived reasonably well over the past 70 years or so. Previous efforts to repair small washouts and keep water draining efficiently seem paltry musings by comparison. Note that as of late 2006 there has been no sign of Kennedy Hot Springs resurfacing, and using this route as an approach to Glacier Peak will be extremely challenging.