[TR] Shuksan- N. Face 5/30/2006

[tytyler]

Climb: Shuksan-N. Face

 

Date of Climb: 5/30/2006

 

Trip Report:

So it seemed everyone else had rain over the memorial day weekend....luckily we decided that Mon/Tues would be better...sure enough!!

We headed out from Seattle at around 9am and started our leisure approach around 12. We arrived just below the North Face route at about 4pm. We followed the cat track below the Baker Ski slopes to its end and instead of heading straight down through the clear cut, we tried cutting across the slope higher up, trying to stay on snow. We ran into several stream crossings and increasing steepness, so we just headed down hill through the trees. Eventually we reached the valley bottom and started our slog. Pretty decent snow conditions with only small post holes and fairly easy going. Once we arrived at the 5400-5600 bench below the N Face, the snow was total slush and the visibility dropped to ZERO. Not a good sign we thought, 60+ degrees and super humid air. Hung out, melted water, climbed into our bivy bags, and off to sleep praying for a better day. (Thanks to the guys who dug out the large tent platform over the weekend).

CLEAR SKIES at 9pm when I stirred in my bivy bag and a temp of 32......looking good. 12am, star filled skies, bright moonlight and 30 degrees....even better.

We wake up at 4am to a totally different world. Clear skies, snow as hard as rock, and visibility for miles. Time to go.

Joe and I headed out around 6am after melting more water. We're on the N Face and headed up. Slow moving at first as our legs warm up. I lead us around some breaks and into the ice fall area, and Joe blazes a quick path through the danger area and into safety. We had a few nice moves over some cracks and moats. Just to the right side exit we hit a soft snow patch, little to no purchase with our feet or tools, we go through as quickly as possible. Uneventful, but beautifully exposed climbing to the shoulder. As soon as reaching the shoulder the winds picked up and cooled us off to a bitter cold. The traverse across the top of hanging glacier was easy and short, there was a boot track, but our snow seemed in better conditions than they got. We reached the summit pyramid at about 9:30am, 3.5hrs from camp, not too bad.

After a brief snack and the thoughts of everyone else being at work we headed up the summit pyramid. It was my second time on the summit so I gave the lead to Joe and we ascended the south gulley. Joe put in an ice screw in one steep, melting out spot and than a nut in a crack just before a short exposed step to the summit. Winds were a consistent 30+mph so we took the standard summit photo, congratulated ourselves and headed down. We simply down climbed, face first, following our tracks down. We met up with a European group of four on their decent from the ridge and they kindly let us pass. They did the Sulphide glacier route.

Neither of us were entirely sure about the decent route, so we were actaully glad we found the boot track from another group. There was a steep step into the hourglass that we downclimbed face first again. The traverse down was beautiful and uneventful. Once we reached the final decent slope, White Salmon, both our spirits were lifted and crushed at the same time. We still had SO long to go down. It took us forever to decent to the valley. plunge stepping sucked, glissading was out, and following the other boot track was worse (once again, their conditions looked worse). We finally settled on a combination of front pointing and heal kicking as muscle groups tired.

Once we reached the bottom we got to wittness a few truck size chunks cleave off the hanging glacier for an incredible break time show. The hike across the valley back to the woods was uneventful, besides a few plunge steps and a celebratory gift from Joe.

Then it turned into a minor hell. We decided to try and traverse the valley the clearcut and head up. It turned into a bushwack through stream crossings on alders and then straight up through the forest.

Finally reaching the car!!! 12hrs, camp to car

 

Snow/ice conditions were great on the entire route, with the exception of the short section on the N Face. We came across very few crevasses and passed through high risk areas early enough.

All in all a great climb. Thanks Joe for picking the mountain

 

Check out photos. Simply use the drop arrow under "slideshow" for larger versions.

www.spaces.msn.com/tytyler37

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

two tools

one screw

one nut

one picket (used in mush)

 

Approach Notes:

there is no trail, just make it up however you like

Edited June 1, 2006 by tytyler

[powdrx]

Sweet pics Bros!! Joe had a pretty good few days... CofR last weekend and Shuksan a week later. Great job... you must be sacrificing to the weather gods!!

[Off_White]

You should post the best of your pics on the gallery here (and then link to the TR), it would be nice to see them in higher resolution. Looks like a great trip.

[chesterboo]

nice work guys! sounds like you had perfect conditions. I was out on Tuesday too on Bearhead Mountain near MRNP. The conditions there were great, with ice in the puddles at the parking area and hard crust on the northern face. Days like that are great to be in the mountains.

[Weekend_Climberz]

Sweet pics and nice climb.

 

Should have taken that extra day off. Way to get some

[treknclime]

Schweet pics! Thx!

[mountainmatt]

Cool stuff! Looks like you got the weather the rest of us were looking for...

[sambataro]

What a sweet climb it was! I posted more photos at:

 

http://isc.astro.cornell.edu/~don/pictures/v/friends/joe/joe_climbing/

 

-Joe

[quark]

Thanks for the TR. Shuksan is a great peak. The N Face provides character all year long...soft snow in winter (I want to ski it!), snow climbing in summer, and neve in fall. A fine place for sure.

[philfort]

we tried cutting across the slope higher up, trying to stay on snow. We ran into several stream crossings and increasing steepness, so we just headed down hill through the trees.

 

Hmm.. how bad was it? Thinking of heading in there soon. With over 100 inches of snow at heather meadows still, I was hoping that traverse approach might still go. I recall a few stream gullies, but no steep slopes - was there still enough snow on that side of the valley to make it go? i.e. was it lack of snow that made you decide to try the other approach, or did you mess up your route-finding

[ashw_justin]

There was continuous snow at 3000 feet at Schreiber Meadows yesterday, if that's any indication.

[philfort]

But Schriebers is a snow hotspot! I guess so is that area between baker and shuksan though... not as much as Schriebers... it looked a tad bony in the photos though..

[ashw_justin]

Yeah I guess that explains why it's a meadow eh?