Took a short trip up Wallaby today. I was severely lacking motivation this morning, so I didn't get on the trail until 1pm, and it was a scorcher! Glad the lower part of the trail has some tree cover, and that it is overall a short hike, but with amazing views.
Started from the hairpin on Highway 20 around 1pm. Walking through the brush on the side of the parking area, it is pretty easy to find user trails in the rock and creek bed; I tended towards the right and found a climber's trail in great shape. After just a couple minutes of hiking, there was a climber/hiker log box to fill out your group and destination objectives. Then it was a little bit of rock hopping and a little bit of overgrown climber trail through the lower part of the valley. Then the trail started gaining elevation towards the ridge, and pretty fast. I found lots of cairns to help navigate. There is a tarn just below the pass with a little pond that is so lovely to rest at, I was sad I didn't bring a floaty up so I could lay in the water to cool down. Travel up to Kangaroo Pass took me about 1:15 hrs, and it was about 1.5 miles.
I took a short break at the pass in the shade to hydrate, and then turned left following the ridgeline up towards Wallaby. I generally tended towards the climber's left or directly on top of the ridge. I used a couple of veggie belays, but nothing with serious exposure of technicality in this section. Just keep on the ridge until you basically can't anymore; at this point, go to the right of the ridge and start scrambling by traversing a little bit and then starting to ascend through all the choss up to the peak. There is one pretty short but steep gully at the beginning of this section, the rock is way more stable on the climber's right than on the left. Then keep climbing up through loose scree. I tried to stick to solid rock and slabby stuff, but I still kicked tons of rock down. Helmet would definitely be recommended for this trip. There is one little snow patch just below the summit remaining; it's not in the path I used to climb up and it will probably be gone soon with all the warm weather. The summit had some nice flat rocks to take a long break on. It took me about another 1:15hrs to gain the summit from the pass, and it was only about a half a mile.
I came back down to my car the same way I went up. My Garmin watch clocked it in at 4.38 miles (with some wandering around for pictures), and 2,678 ft elevation gain; trip took me just under 5 hrs at a leisurely pace in the 100-degree temps with all my breaks.
This is a great little scramble in the North Cascades, super accessible and short on distance but not of views. I would hesitate to say it's just Class 2 due to the steepness of the scramble, I was using my hands most of the time, so maybe 2+/3-.
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