Climb: Mt. Shuksan-North Face
Date of Climb: 5/29/2005
Trip Report:
AaronZ, JoshL, and I climbed the NF of Shuksan this past weekend. We got an "early" start on Saturday, leaving Seattle at 6:30 AM, planning to lounge around all afternoon and beat the heat on the approach. We did lounge around all afternoon, but it was sweltering, even at 10 AM!
For the approach, we went straight downhill through the old-growth just before the clearcut. It wasn't bad at all, and we found a convenient spot to ford the creek barefoot. There was a little bit of brush on the other side until we got a little ways above the creek. Then more steep timber led us up the ridge, opening into a few patches of huckleberry before cresting. The ridge walk to the base of the North Face was pleasant, with bluebird skies overhead, and thunderheads building to the east. We set up camp on a small outcrop that was snow-free; there was a boulder about fifty feet downhill where a gushing stream flowed. The mountain rumbled in the late efternoon and evening, and we went to bed hoping the snow would harden overnight.
By 4AM, we had packed up camp and tied in. Though we weren't postholing as bad as the evening before, the top few inches of snow were still soft. C'est la vie. Aaron led westward, traversing under a series of waterfalls, and then climbed partway up the lower face before passing off the lead to me. He had done a lot of work breaking trail, and we hoped for harder snow higher.
I took over the lead, and soon I encountered neve and even glacial ice (it may have been possible to avoid it by swinging left, but straight up was faster and more fun!). The ice was quite refreshing, with sweet sticks and bomber screws. Up higher, I crossed a crevasse on a not-too-inspiring snow bridge and then broke more trail to the exit gully and a shoulder at the bottom of the upper face.
We took a short break, enjoying the amazing views -- the exposure down to Price Lake, and the early-morning light. After refueling ourselves, we talked about how everyone was feeling, and everyone accepted my offer to continue breaking trail. I went pretty much straight up, aiming for a bergshrund between rock on the left and right. Even though we were higher on the face, I found it tiring to break trail through the soft snow. The bergshrund had only partially opened, and a short section of steep snow soon mellowed back to the average 40-degree slop of the face. We slogged several hundred feet higher to the bottom of the Hanging Glacier before we found a convenient spot to rest and re-rack. I was happy to rest, exhausted from breaking trail for the full upper face in a continuous push.
Aaron took over breaking trail, and we were soon at the 8400' col. The views to the SE were amazing; an inversion had filled the valleys with clouds. Transitioning from the north side to the south, we became aware of how hot it was, with no wind to mitigate the heat. Aaron traversed high across the Crystal, crossing numerous wet-slide paths, and we were soon at the base of the summit pyramid. We dropped our packs and refueled, while watching a party of 4 on the bottom part of the south face.
A party of Mazamas provided quite the comic relief. They were inching up the slope, and then they stopped. The leader complained, "These pickets are just psychological!" "I think we should bail!" "I don't want to disappoint you guys with missing the summit, but my feet are standing on nothing right now!" And they just stood there even longer. Some folks lower down on the rope started downclimbing, and the leader may have muttered something about wanting to rap.
We didn't want to be anywhere near them, so we opted for the SE ridge, along with another party of 3 who just barely beat us to it. They moved quickly, though we were often sharing belays. I think the SE ridge is a little sandbagged at 4th class; though much of the route was at a moderate angle, there were several 15-foot-high vertical steps that felt nontrivial given boots, axe/crampons dangling from harness, and friability of the rock. Given the low angle of the ridge, we downclimbed it, with Aaron doing a marvelous job of placing pro for me. Throughout the entire time we had been on the ridge, there were regular sluffs down the central gully, as well as the occasional rockfall.
About 2/3 the way down the ridge, we rapped to the snow and plunged back to our packs. As we were rappeling, we chatted with some folks heading up the south face to the summit; the Mazamas were long gone. The folks had climbed Fisher Chimneys, and we looked forward to following their tracks. During the time we were at the summit pyramid, almost as long as it took us to North Face, we counted over twenty people, and only our two parties went up something other than the Sulphide Route.
Following their tracks down the Sulphide, Upper Curtis, and White Salmon was straight-forward. Hells Highway and Winnie's Slide were completely unbroken, and plunge-stepping down them was quite enjoyable -- until we realized we'd have to gain the elevation back on the Upper Curtis. We made good time down to the Fisher Chimneys entrance, and we started down the gully with a little trepidation -- Nelson warns that one should not attempt going down it without having gone up it first. We read the terrain and looked for signs of traffic; our routefinding was right on until a traverse above a sheer drop.
The path thinned, and broken slopy ledges led down to flatter spots that looked like they may continue onward. We scouted around there, freaking ourselves out a little from climbing amidst the exposure, before we came to our senses. There must be an easier way. We finally found a higher traverse that led to a steep heather slope with much less pucker factor. We followed trail, mostly snow-free, the rest of the way, passing several waterfalls. We gratefully refilled our near-empty water bottles and marched onward. We were soon contouring the snow slopes toward Lake Ann.
The march back to civilization was quite grueling. We were pretty wrecked, and we knew we had to gain a thousand vert as well. We ate the last of our food and trudged up the snow, which had now been enveloped in a whiteout. We were glad to be following tracks. When we reached the pass above Lake Ann, we lost the tracks, so we pulled out the map and compass. Just then, the folks who had climbed Fisher Chimneys walked up; they had come through here twelve hours earlier. We hiked out with them, creek-hopping through the valley, switchbacking uphill to Austin Pass, and finally stumbling down the gated road.
They graciously offered to shuttle one of us to our car. We remembered to sign out at the ranger station, and we took turns driving back and keeping each other awake, sometimes the most dangerous part of a climbing trip. The North Face was a grand place to be, and it was rare pleasure to traverse so many glaciers. We could have done without the subalpine approach/deproach and the cluster on the summit pyramid, but overall, it was a great trip and one of the coolest places I've been.
I'll post some pics later.
Gear Notes:
four pickets, two screws; small rock rack for summit pyramid
Approach Notes:
We parked at a pullout just before the gate to the lower lodge, and the DOT(?) had drawn orange Xs on our front and rear windows?
