Later season view of Shuksan. The top of the Sulfide Glacier can be seen to the right of the summit pyramid.
Nabbed my first cascade summit last weekend when my friends Dave and Emily and I made an early season jaunt up the Sulfide Glacier route on Mt. Shuksan in the North Cascades.
Heading up the Sulfide. The summit pyramid is just to the right of Emily in the photo.
We packed up friday night and headed to the trailhead for a parking lot bivy. Started off Saturday to beautiful sunny weather. Snow was still low on the trail, so it wasn't long before snowshoes were out. Even still, any snow in the sun was a sloppy mess, so uphill progress was strenuous.
Dave on the Sulfide.
Avalanches on the steep slopes were going off like shotguns on a regular basis, which had us a little nervous once we got out of the trees. We were stopped at one slope for about 30 minutes while a party ahead of us dug a snow pit, when out of nowhere 11 dudes from the Boeing Alpine club flew by like a freight train. This left us with a phenomenal boot pack that we poached the rest of the day (all the fun and none of the work!)
Campin' it up on the glacier. A sunny and cold summit in the background.
After setting up camp at about 6500', we hung out in the sunshine and tried to catch some late afternoon z's. The alarm hit at 2:00 am, and as we looked up the glacier we already saw 15+ headlamps making a bee line for the summit. This just goes to show that people who work in office environments are way too motivated for their own good.
View of Mt. Baker from camp.
We roped up and left camp at 3:00 am, and dawn broke just as we were heading up the final slopes to the summit pyramid. Unfortunately, the summit was a train wreck of boeing employees, who are apparently great at making bootpacks, but much less motivated on steep terrain. We ended up waiting about an hour for them to finish their siege assault on the summit - hmmm, should have slept in. Oh well, lesson learned.
Summit shot with Baker in the background.
Once we were on the summit pyramid, though, the climbing was really fun. It felt great to be on something cold and steep. Nothing too technical, but I was glad that we each had a second tool (its what I know, dammit! Crazy cascade kids and their one ice axe...). Once we stepped onto the summit ridge, there was a step of rime ice that was close to vertical, and the drop off to the glacier on the right was at least 500'! Great exposure, and having just a snow picket 50' below me as pro made it pretty exciting.
Down climbing the summit ridge.
The summit itself was spectacular. This was by far the coolest summit I've stood on to date, and it definitely made the rest of the glacier slog worth every step. I've wanted to climb this peak ever since I first looked up at it while snowboarding on the Shuksan Arm from the Baker ski resort in high school, so it was cool to look down on that from the top and feel like I had come full circle. Even though it was "just" the dog route (which at this point was about the only safe bet on the mountain anyways), this was a sweet weekend and a great intro to Cascade mountaineering. Big thanks for a great climb, Dave and Emily!
Dave descending the summit ridge, with the West Face dropping dramatically below him.
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