I'd love to come back and summit White Chuck someday but for now here's some information about the tarn:
The road is long and doable if you go slow. We were just fine in a RAV4 but it did take an hour and some change to get up to the TH. There are just enough potholes that it's challenging to get up to speed at any point, not to mention much of the drive is one lane with blind corners.
There is not a real parking area. The road mostly just dead ends with a little room to turn around. There was one other car parked when we arrived and we parked in the pull off just a little further down the road.
BUGS ARE TERRIBLE. Even from the parking area. Our car was bombarded with massive horse flies to the point where we were afraid to get out. We put our nets on and doused ourselves in bug spray before we even left the car. Luckily they didn't bother us.
The trail isn't especially well maintained but it's an obvious route with a few logs to step over until you reach the first open scree slope where you can either continue up to the summit or take a right down the scree to the little "trail" that heads across the meadows and to the tarn. There are some ribbon markers here in the scree.
The trail is fairly evident crossing the open meadow slopes and the views are gorgeous. Once you get to the dried up creek bed it can get confusing. We made the mistake of going left up the creek bed which meant we had to find a route through the massive boulder field. If you cross the dried up creek bed and stick to the right of the boulder field there actually is a small trail, it's just difficult to see from below. We left two cairns at the spot where this trail splits off from the creek bed.
Once you get to the top of the boulder field stick to the right, there's still a trail that will take you up the small ridge to the left and to the final boulder field. This field is much smaller and we ended up rock hopping through it but, yet again, there is an actual trail if you stick to the right (it was much easier to see from above on the way down). Other than the scree where the tarn path splits off from the White Chuck Climber's route you shouldn't actually need to navigate through any boulder fields.
Once you walk up the final bit of trail past the boulder field you're at the tarn! Just stick to the right and climb around the big rock to get to the other side of the shore.
There's really only one good campsite that's totally flat. Maybe two or three other less-ideal ones. But the basin is small and echo-y so it wouldn't be very fun to stay with more than one group.
The tarn itself is pristine but mosquitos were a nightmare. We both kept our nets on and reapplied spray and still got eaten alive. 30+ bites each.
We set up camp and enjoyed the gorgeous sunset lighting on White Chuck + the views of Glacier, Pugh, and Sloan peaks.
On our way back down the next day, obviously, we found a better path than the boulder field one we took on the way up. We didn't see a single other person the entire trip.
This is a gorgeous little tarn but definitely not meant for crowds. The route isn't physically technical but should only be attempted if you have some backcountry route finding skills.
Roughly 5.6 mi, 1400 ft gain rt.
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