I climbed Hayrick Butte and explored the top on Sun Nov 13. Hayrick Butte has been a project for me for the past 10 years. It took one recon trip and five attempts to finally achieve success. Not much is written about how to do it (safely or not). All the clues I've read turned out to be accurate. The biggest challenges are avoiding the mind-numbing brush and, of course, safety.
I arrived for an 8am start near the Benson Sno-park. Shortly after that, it started raining hard. I waited for an hour and then gave up and tried to salvage the day on the nearby Patjens Lakes trail. I figured bushwacking through wet bushes and slipping on wet rocks wouldn't get me good results. As I was trekking towards the lakes, the rain stopped, the sun lit up Hayrick Butte, and a little wind kicked up. I made a U-turn and by the time I got back to the bottom of Hayrick Butte the foliage was dry. I had the green light to go up.
I located a faint user trail on the prominent east side buttress. I followed it all the way up and eventually located the reputed safe chute to the top. The climb took about an hour. The exploration at the top took about two hours. The climb down took about an hour which included mistracking the trail off the top and having to go all the way back up to get reoriented.
The buttress was solid and with stairstep features:
- Buttress boot selfie
Eventually you reach the wall where sidehilling eventually leads to the safe chute. There is no possibility of more uphill here:
- Wall at the buttress end
The safe chute is several hundred yards of mostly scrambling along the bottom of the wall:
- Hike along the wall
This part was particularly dicey. That chipped rock was pretty slidey. It was just hanging on by the slightest friction. I didn't want to get caught in a rock avalanche. It was not avoidable:
- Slidey rock
Soon the vertical wall gives way to slightly vegetated gullies near the south east corner:
- Approaching the safe chute
And then the path up becomes obvious. I found a wash that was the obvious safe route up:
- Safe chute bottom
I hit the top and quickly started exploring. Soon I realized that if I didn't mark my exit I just might never find it. There is probably two miles of perimeter and no trail markings. I stuck my jacket to tree limb for easy exit (or so I thought):
- Flagging to mark my exit
As you'd expect, the top was flat in the southern part but the northern part had a number of long straight channels that looked like creek beds flanked by 30 foot moderately steep sides. There were also a good number of flat plant-free sections:
- Plant free section
Here's the view from the west side edge with Hoodoo Ski Area's backside exit trail:
- West side and Hoodoo
Eventually I made my way back to my flag jacket. My foresight paid off. I took off down this gully marked by my jacket:
- Wrong way down
I got the bottom of this WRONG gully and realized there was no way past the bottom to the sidehill trail. I made several probing advances down but the last step was too risky no matter which route I picked. I would have had to jump at some point and a perfect landing was required or else I'd keep going. Back to the top with me to figure it out again. Oh me oh my: I was off by one gully. My corrected down-climb was familiar including finding my boot prints.
The only bad part of this hike was the constant grind of off-road toys, a mindless use of the woods that I've come to hate. These noisemakers were buzzing around all sides of Hayrick Butte. Are mufflers a bad idea?
I can post more details if anybody wants them.
