Round Mountain
- Mar 28
- 3 min read
3/28/2026
When you think of the most prominent summits in the state of Washington, what comes to mind? Most people would envision glacier-clad volcanoes like Mount Ranier or Mount Baker, and craggy peaks like Mount Shuksan and Stuart. Surprisingly, a humble, assuming summit called Round Mountain is ranked 8th on the list, higher than many of the most notable and rugged peaks in the state. Despite its unassuming profile, Round Mountain boasts 4840 feet of prominence, which puts it just under the lofty P5k threshold. It is the highest point of the so-called Logger’s Island near Darrington, which is bordered on all sides by the Puget Sound Lowlands, the North Fork Stillaguamish River, the Sauk River, and the Skagit River.
There is a summer trail that leads to the summit from Deer Creek Pass, but Round Mountain is more interesting as a winter climb, in my opinion. Brad was up to chase prominence with me, and we drove up from Swede Heaven as high as we could, until the road terminated at a broken bridge. The road was in good shape the whole way, and there was room for a few cars at the makeshift trailhead.
The bridge crossing looked like it had burned at some point. The logs were charred and some still had rebar sticking out of them. A daring hiker could probably make an Indiana Jones style crossing of the bridge, but it was easy for us to just drop down to the creek and hop across. We walked on the road for a short while, before picking a spot to turn up and begin our cross country climb through the woods.
The forest was nice and open, much more so than I would expect on the west side of the Cascades. It made for easy travel, but the slope was super steep. Some trip reports I read mentioned being taken off guard by the steepness and I’d have to agree…it was even steeper than I anticipated! Despite the unrelenting grade, we made good progress, and eventually the ridge began to flatten around 4100’.
Faint traces of snow appeared around here and quickly became consistent as we traversed the flat ridge. The change of gradient felt good after the steep climb.
Here was where we were presented with the first challenge of the day. A short (maybe 15 foot) downclimb that we negotiated with care, utilizing many veggie belays in the process.
Beyond the downclimb, the ridge stayed narrow, with some sections resembling a tamer version of the Eldorado summit ridge. Before long we were climbing again, picking our way up on mostly snow, but with several rocky steps along the way. Due to the low snow year, there was a significant amount of rock exposed, so we sometimes chose to scramble up some of the harder sections for fun.
Steady climbing brought us up to the wide and aptly named, round summit, which was completely open and had great views in all directions. We gave the summit cornice a wide berth and observed mounting clouds beginning to slam into Whitehorse Mountain.
The snow was perfect for plunge stepping, which made for a super speedy descent. There was one point where we basically sprinted down an open snow slope because the snow was so perfect. When we got back to the flat ridge and it came time to reverse the downclimb section, I chose to scramble back up it, grabbing on to branches and yanking myself up. Brad poked around and found a slightly easier snow ramp to circumvent the steep step, so pick your poison here.
The rest of the way down was uneventful, despite the punishing downhill grade in the forest. We again chose to rock hop across the creek and were cruising into the Stilly Diner in Arlington before we knew it.
Final Stats: 4.8 miles / 3729 feet of gain / 5 hours and 48 minutes
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