Mt. Shuksan, Sulphide Glacier

[AlpinistAndrew]

Myself and two others went up to do the Sulphide Glacier on Shuksan last weekend (Friday-Saturday). We were going to do it light, just food, water, climbing gear, and a bit of clothing. We started hiking between 7 and 8 PM on Friday night. We hiked pretty quickly and we were soon working our way up the ridge as it got dark. We lost the trail though, but we followed faint boot tracks in the snow patches. We finaly reached the ridge crest and we could see the pass. We made it to the pass about midnight. Perfectly clear out. We stopped for a rest and began heading towards the glacier. We roped up at glaciers edge and began the trudge. We saw a big rocky pyramid very soon and we thought that this must be the summit pyramid, we looked for the gully and sort of found one. We ascended, only to find it ending at a moat, so we bypassed the moat and went up a very steep exposed snow slope in which we set up a running belay with pickets. The snow was between 70-80 degrees, way steeper than what the summit pyramid gully was supposed to be, we eventually reached a dead end and at this time there was a bit of light out (it had been very dark despite the clear skies. We could see the true summit pyramid a couple miles off. We rappeled down/downclimbed to the main glacier. We could have continued to the true summit, but we were a long ways off and we had just wasted a good 3+ hours and a lot of our energy. We should have known better, that the summit wasn't that close, i should have checked my GPS too (stupid, stupid, stupid). Oh well, it was still an awesome day. Great views absolutley stunning. The glacier was in great shape. We made it back to the cars at about 7am on Saturday, a 12 hour push. Also on the way down, we lost the trail and we had to bushwack. I was dead tired when i got to the car, it was exhausting, but carrying a light pack made me feel really good and allowed me to go fast, however making mistakes is not an option.

[Mike]

We did it in July a couple of years ago. Left the cars at 4:30am and that worked just fine. We were able to scramble the summit pyramid (no snow that late). On our way out we passed scores of people covered with black flies trudging slowly uphill with overnight packs in the heat of the day. Sulphide day-trip is the way to go.