We hit Crested Butte at the best time for crowd avoidance, meaning also a less scenic time: after the splendor of the wildflowers and before the glory of autumn. Neither Ben nor I had much expectation for White Rock and White Benchmark; we anticipated a bushwhack and scree slog and had reluctantly decided on this itinerary because of poor weather in the Weminuche. The outing turned out both better and nearly - but thankfully not - tragically worse than we could imagine.

I had Derek Wolfe's Guide to the Elk Mountains as a reference and we left the trail for Queen's basin shortly after our second creek crossing. We likely should have done so just before that crossing, as we trended back that direction as we negotiated the steep, thickly forested slope. As the trees thinned, we followed a dry watercourse up grassy terrain into Queen's basin.

Ben, having spent all summer doing long races, easily outpaced me, and Carmine, having spent all summer hiking with other teenagers, easily kept pace with me, and I called a brunch break on the small grassy hillock below the west ridge of White Rock. While we munched away, I pointed out some slabs that seemed to offer a bit of a shortcut up the ridge. Our original intent had been to veer left (north) to gain the ridge at its low point, but we all agreed some solid-looking class 3 rock was more attractive than a scree shuffle. Unfortunately, neither Ben nor I took a pic of this, so I cropped the prior pic to show the route; it's a bit pixelated.

The slab presented more difficult terrain: definitely class 4 and, at Ben's prodding, I agreed I'd taken Carmine onto his first class 5. But the slab was solid, offering good friction and also slanting inward to a rock wall. Where the slab met the wall, a continuous crack offered secure finger holds.

This section proved to be the most fun rock of the day. Topping out on west ridge about one third of the way up, we looked down and reaffirmed our route choice. The terrain looked to be a miserable morass of junky talus. Ahead, the way to the summit looked like we'd expected, but turned out not to be too tedious. From here, it took exactly a half hour to the summit.

We snacked a bit more on the summit and soaked in the views of the more famous Elk peaks to the north. Admiring the long, pointy ridge to Pyramid peak, Ben and I recalled our "minimidal" traverse with Rick years back, going from 13130 to Thunder Pyramid, but omitting THE Pyramid at the end of the day. What slackers we were! We both blame Rick.

With no real beta on the ridge, Ben and I had planned to drop to the east. Carmine wanted to try the ridge and we agreed to do so, with the understanding that we'd backtrack and drop off whenever it became too dangerous. Leaving White Rock Mountain to embark on the traverse to White Benchmark, we immediately encountered the namesake white rocks, which we'd not encountered on our ascent. Glaring against the blue sky, they have all the strength of sticks of chalk used on blackboards.

Soon after this part, we found ourselves back on the ridge proper, with rock of noticeably better quality. We made quick time and found ourselves on a cool natural staircase.

I was surprised at how solid most of the rock was. Even stuff that looked loose was not that bad.Still, we should have worn helmets for this route. Soon, we came to what felt like the summit pitch, but checking the gps, we realized we were only halfway.

We paused to consider our course, which would end up curling to the right of "finger" in the foreground left and then up the scruffy ramp beyond it. With the sun now shifting to the south, we were now walking into it, so it was hard to get a good up-close shot of this portion. So I'm not sure if this next image helps much or not.

To reach that little finger, we had to negotiate terrain that was thankfully much more stable than it appeared.

After wrapping around the finger on its right, we found ourselves in a tight notch. Climbing out of it involved nothing more than class 3 terrain, but we took care with our placement because of the detritus scattered beneath and atop the large blocks.

When we were not focusing our attention on the rocks at our hands or our feet, the views ahead and behind kept our interest. Toil and beauty, the marriage that make the mountains so rewarding.

From here, we were close to the summit, with only one last downclimb before it.

In keeping with our juvenile jokes about the "BM," the rock here abruptly became as shitty as it appeared. Still leading the traverse, I grabbed hold of a stone edge with my left hand, preparing to continue scrambling up the ridge, when the whole of what I held came loose: a large sheet nearly chest high. Ben had moved out along a ledge to the left, but when I turned as the rock tore loose from the mountainside, I saw Carmine standing directly beneath me. Reacting quickly, he darted upward and to his right. The rock teetered on an edge, then smashed into two large fragments that clattered harmlessly downward. I felt immensely grateful that Carmine had avoided injury and/or death, guilt and anger at myself for nearly killing him, and also bewilderment, because my intended path had seemed viable: the rock had appeared more solid than much of the stuff we'd clambered over gingerly on the traverse.

Shaken, I didn't take any more photos between this spot and the summit. Form the spot of the near accident, we followed Ben's lead out along the east face, which reclined at a lower angle than the ridgeline. Meandering up the ledges, it took us about 25 minutes to reach the summit, for roughly 2.5 hours total on the traverse. We lingered on the summit of White Benchmark for the balance of an hour, until the skies became less friendly, and then picked our way down the southwest flank to rejoin the route we'd taken up Queen's basin, and keeping close to the water course as we entered the trees below it.

All in all, a beautiful and rewarding day outdoors. Overall, my impression of the traverse was that it was not that bad: not as rough or as long as many others I've done. Yet, it nearly proved disastrous. Experience can mitigate but never negate the inherent dangers in this wonderful pastime.