Mt. Shuksan - A long day in the alpine
Nathanael Mokry
The route was 16 miles round trip, with ~7,000ft of elevation gain up the Sulphide glacier. Sounds pretty straight forward, right? Well, Rachel seemed to think so. We woke up at 3:45am, left camp by 4:20am and started hiking on an old logging road that was overgrown with bushes and forest. As the first person in the crew, it was my job to catch all the "Spideys", which basically just meant my face was the sacrifical lamb responsible for getting all of the spider webs that were across the trail.
It was a hot & muggy morning, and I hate being hot & sweaty. It's in these moments that you remember the words all moms say "If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all." But thankfully, we eventually came out on top of a ridge where we caught a nice cool breeze
After passing over the first gap, we took a minute to grab some breakfast as the sun started to peak over the mountains in the distance. We didn't stay here long due to the bugs
We continued up the trail & enjoying the view
I told Jon to pause while snuck in a pic
As it became lighter we saw more & more snow. Note how far ahead the girls are. It was at this point when my mood became better. It's amazing how a little alpine beauty will get me excited and act as a natural mood enhancer.
At the base of the lower Curtis glacier we roped up. As you can see, most people who were smart camped at high camp (behind us). There were only a couple people who planned to the mountain in a day.
A view of our summit! From far away, that summit pyramid looked STEEP and very far away.
Snow conditions were great. All of the summer heat had compacted all the snow and there were very few crevasses. If we did encounter any obstacles in the snow, we could easily walk around them. There was the occasional small crevasse crack, but the route was pretty clear and we just walked around them.
From the lower Curtis, over the Sulphide was a long, slow, and gentle grade up to the summit pyramid. It was easy walking and the views kept us motivated.
Once we reached the base of the summit pyramid, we dropped some of our heavier equipment at a stash and started the scramble up
While it was steep, no real rope or gear was needed on the way up. Scramble, scramble, scramble
After passing a slower rope team, we summited! Special thanks to Rachel who had been up here before and was showing us the way.
Jon had recently just bought a new, thin twin rope which made rappelling down the steep pyramid much easier.
This was Kim's first lead rappel down. As you can see there was some steep snow that much easier to rappel down than down-climbed
The next time I come to this mountain, I want to fly off it! Maybe I'll top-land table mountain. The way back to the car was a long slog (~17hrs round trip). We got back at 9:30pm. I want to see if I can skip that part next time. We left the cars in the dark, and came back in the dark. Looking forward to the next adventure!