5 days in the Pickets?

[Fromage]

A hypothetical situation: say you have five days off, a potential partner, and you have never before ventured into the Pickets. You plan to go, and want to cover a realistic amount of ground, having already dispensed with the idea of traversing the entire range. So if you, the reader, have spent some time in the Pickets, I would appreciate your answers to the following questions:

 

Given the timeframe and potential for navigational errors,

 

1. Would you go to the northern or the southern Pickets? Why?

2. By which routes would you access and exit the range of your choice if you had one car? Two cars?

3. For your preferred range, what pieces of gear do you consider indispensable?

4. Are there any specific hazards, difficulties or obstacles you encountered?

5. What routes on peaks were especially rewarding? Why?

6. Did you do any routes that you wish you would have skipped?

 

Thanks for sharing info.

[AllYouCanEat]

That's a lot of questions! I will answer a few. If I had one car, I would go to Fury via access creek and spend all five days their tagging everything in sight. The NE Face of Fury, Luna, challenger, maybe prophet on the way out.

 

If I had two cars, I would do the standard traverse across the n picket's. In Hannigan and through one of the two approaches over challenger and out access creek.

 

If I were to go in the southern picket's, I would go in terror creek and spend all five days climbing everything in sight.

 

The difficulties are part of the fun and anyhow there are too many to go over. Go luck, I'm headed out for 5 days right now ...

[Rad]

Warning: I've only been to the Pickets once, and only to the South end. Others can tell you about the North....

 

Routes we climbed or scoped:

 

5.9 mortals can easily do the mini-traverse that Ed and I did. See thread below.

 

Mark, Colin, and Wayne's real deal and our minitraverse

 

West Mac spire looks pretty casual but beautiful.

 

E ridge of Inspiration is inspirational. Though the business is really only two pitches, the setting is incomparable.

 

The West ridge of Inspiration (which we down-climbed/rapped) doesn't look too great and the gully to the Terror glacier looks like a nightmare late in the season.

 

The NE ridge on the chopping block (aka Pinnacle) is very nice.

 

Go for it!