Blueberry Hill & Proxima Wall Rock Climbing

Blueberry Hill is the west face of Exfoliation Dome.  There is really no aspect of it that isn’t appealing, but the view from Three O’clock Rock is truly stunning.  It’s nearly a thousand feet of exposed granite with a half-century of climbing interest and exploration. Blueberry Hill is unique in that the approach requires 1000 feet of hiking and scrambling up the low-angled “Granite Sidewalk”.  The Dark Rhythm route description has good directions for this.  It’s also possible to skip the lower portion of the Sidewalk by hiking up into small trees just north of the drainage. Hike up about 500' under the leaves and find a passage to the right that joins the Sidewalk at mid height.

The entire peak is called Exfoliation Dome and nowhere is this more appropriate than on the Blueberry Hill side. Darrington in general, has a history of shedding flakes, though usually in private, during the winter.  The West (Blueberry) Buttress route, now probably climbed hundreds of times, does occasionally change character.  Snow, avalanches and rockfall can damage fixed gear. It’s not unreasonable to have a couple of bolt hangers, nuts and a wrench in your pack when climbing on Blueberry Hill. These are trad routes on a big granite mountain with significant descent difficulties.