Last year Cheri, Jef, Andy, and I made an attempt on the Sulphide Glacier route of Mt. Shuksan. We had to turn around mid-climb on the summit pyramid. Cheri and I decided to go back and do it again this year but a much more technical/challenging and interesting route called Fisher Chimneys.
Friday morning Cheri, Lace, Wade, Patrick, and I set out for Lake Ann, which would be our base camp for our Mt. Shuksan climb. It was a 4 mile hike in where you lose 600 feet of elevation right away and then you cross through the valley and climb 1,000 feet to the lake. From our tent we had over half of the route in view, which was nice because we could scope it out, look at the pictures and trip reports we had printed out, and get a game plan together. We cooked a yummy dinner (pasta with pesto, basil, tomatoes, and pine nuts). While dinner was cooking we could see a big storm pooling up in the valley and started to hear thunder and lightning. We knew there was a 30% chance of this in the forecast but we didn't know what was about to come...
We all scattered to get our stuff into our tents and get ready for rain, thunder, whatever it was that was coming. Lace came over to hang out in the tent with Cheri, Patrick and I for a bit and we were playing cards while it was lightly raining outside. All of a sudden, it turned into a torrential downpour and Lace jumped into the tent with us. It wasn't long before we noticed that there was about 3 inches of water underneath the tent that was pooling up and there was water coming in the seams of the tent (Cheri hasn't seam sealed her tent yet). The downpour lasted for a while and we were starting to freak out about all the water in and around the tent. We got out in our underwear and rain jackets and started digging trenches around the tent to relive the water under the tent and anymore water we might receive during the night. Fortunately, it worked perfectly and we were able to get a dry nights sleep!
Saturday morning we got up at 4:15 a.m. and slowly got out of our tents, setup our packs, ate breakfast, and rolled out onto the trail to start our soon to be epic journey. We hiked out on the trail to the base of what we thought was Fisher Chimneys. We ended up wasting about 30 minutes there debating where we should be scrambling instead of just going for the most obvious section (we could see rap slings in a tree). After we got on route we cruised up this mixed scramble/trail section and crossed a giant talus field, which lead us to the base of Fisher Chimneys. With a quick glance at a picture that Ira had provided us of the scramble route, we set off to climb about 900 feet of class 3 rock. We were told that route finding would be an issue but it was really quite simple based on someone having set pink ribbons along the way to give you an idea of where to go next.
Once we reached the top of the Chimneys we put on our crampons and roped up for the glacier. We got on the snow and headed up the White Salmon glacier, and then had to crampon on a mini-rock scramble for a bit until we go to the base of Winnies Slide. We climbed up Winnies Slide, which is about 60-70 degree snow and topped out on Upper Curtis Glacier.
We cruised UCG, or otherwise known as "Hells Highway", up and down through crevasse fields until we reached the final push up to the Sulfide Glacier, which would be the final piece we needed to climb to get to the summit pyramid.
Once we negotiated this crevasse field we headed up another bit of steep snow that was probably around 60 degrees and topped out on the Sulfide Glacier. We cruised the next section as it's pretty simple but still at least an hour away from the summit pyramid.
As we got closer to the pyramid we could see that there were a ridiculous amount of people on route. There was a group of 11 climbers and then at least 3-4 groups of 2 climbers each. We had to wait our turn, which took some time to get the people cleared out and us on our way. We did the class 4-5 summit scramble on rock for about 300 or so feet to the summit. Unfortunately, there were ominous clouds looming in the valley and everything basically turned to a white out. We knew we had to bail off and do it quick before the rain came...
Glad to be at the summit!
We down climbed 90% of the route but had decided to rappel off the first section from the summit because the rock was a pretty wet slab. Unfortunately, when the guys pulled the rope the rope got caught so Patrick had to climb back up and get the rope and then down climb that section. Cheri, Lace, and I had down climbed the whole thing and we were waiting at the base for the guys. Unfortunately, that chewed up quite a bit of time, probably 30-45 minutes. Once they got down we skirted a steep snow section and scrambled down to our gear so we could get roped up and ready for the glacier.
We started our down climb but overshot the top of Hells Highway and had to turn around and go back, which ate another 20 minutes or so. The winds picked up to about 25 miles per hour and the white out was rolling in and out. We could hear thunder and lightening in the valley and we knew we had to move fast. We got to the steep section before the large crevasse field, which was something we had talked about in length while heading down the glacier (we needed to find a safe way to make it through this section as the snow bridges were super thin and the risk of falling into a crevasse was high) and it started to rain! We were hurried but decided to down climb a section of snow that was 70-80 degrees while placing pickets for protection, which was less exposed to crevasse danger but also had the increased risk of falling. Fortunately, we all made it through unscathed and started cruising back across Hells Highway and prayed that the Chimneys weren't that wet because we were going to have to down climb that section in order to get back to camp.
We made it through the Chimneys, choosing to only rappel on one section that was wet and exposed, and made it back to the trail. The sun was almost completely down by the time we hit the last stretch of trail back to camp.
This trip was an epic 16 hour adventure with no breaks. We literally did not stop moving almost the entire time. I am very proud of our team and our ability to work together to make decisions and safely make the summit and get back to camp.
The team at the summit:
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