[TR] Mount Challenger and Whatcom Peak - Challenger Glacier 08/19/2018

[aaasen]

Trip: Mount Challenger and Whatcom Peak - Challenger Glacier

Trip Date: 08/19/2018

Trip Report:

Nate Redon and I climbed Challenger and Whatcom last weekend. We started late Friday night from the Hannegan Pass TH and hiked to the Chilliwack crossing before making camp. The next day we hiked up Easy Ridge and summited Challenger, finding the bergschrund to be in good condition. We slept at Perfect Pass then climbed Whatcom, descended the North Ridge to Whatcom Pass, and made it back to the car at dusk.

I wrote a full trip on my site here: https://www.laneaasen.com/2018/08/a-weekend-in-pickets-challenger-and.html

I thought some of you here might have known my great-grandfather Phil Dickert, who made the first ascent of Challenger along with George MacGowan and Jack Hossack in 1936. I used some of his photos in the trip report since the smoke was too thick to get overview photos of my own.

Gear Notes:
30m rope, two slings, ice axe, crampons

Approach Notes:
Hannegan Pass to Easy Ridge

[geosean]

Nice report, thanks for sharing. You make everything sound so chill! I suspect from other reports that much of this trip is harder than it comes across in your report. It sounds like it was a cool trip with some personal history to make it even more meaningful.

What did you take for footwear?

[aaasen]

I don't think any trip to the Pickets is chill, and this one was no exception! Especially the North Ridge of Whatcom. I don't really want to go down that again.

I used trail runners for the first 10 miles to the Chilliwack crossing, then approach shoes (La Sportiva Boulder X) for everything else. They work pretty well with the strap-on Irvis Hybrids for glacier travel.

[Bronco]

Great TR and good on you for getting out there despite the smoke.  That's a lot of walking for 48 hours!

[seano-]

That's some grim smoke -- way to persevere despite the long-term health consequences!  Thanks for sharing the old photos.  FWIW, here's a photo of Challenger from Whatcom on a clear day in 2014:

[aaasen]

18 hours ago, seano- said:

That's some grim smoke -- way to persevere despite the long-term health consequences!  Thanks for sharing the old photos.  FWIW, here's a photo of Challenger from Whatcom on a clear day in 2014:

Thanks for posting that photo! It matches perfectly with the one I have from the first ascent. I made a couple comparison photos. Yours was taken much earlier in the season, but the recession at the lower reaches of the glacier is still clear.