Mount Shuksan: Sulphide (2018)
Trip Date: July 21-22, 2018
Distance: ~16 miles roundtrip
Elevation Gain: 6700 ft
Fees/Permits: North Cascades National Park Backcountry Permit (if camping overnight); National Parks Pass
Permit Location: Sedro-Woolley Ranger Station
GPX Tracks: Day 1, Day 2
You remember how I turned around at the summit pyramid two weeks ago when I was climbing Mount Shuksan via the Fisher Chimneys route?
While I felt resigned to the fact that we were not making the summit that day, the opportunity arose soon after for me to climb Shuksan again…and I was not going to turn it down. To be perfectly honest, I’ve never seen the appeal of reaching the summit of a mountain via different routes. I’ve always figured that the summit was the summit, doesn’t matter what route you took to get up there. Thanks for proving me wrong, Shuksan.
I “needed” to get my July turns in and the Sulphide Glacier had looked like it would be a nice buttery corn harvest. So I talked Weston (who in turn talked Noah and Tom) into hauling our skis up for this trip.
Weston and I stopped by the ranger station in Sedro-Woolley first thing Saturday morning to pick up permits. It was a good thing we got there early because there were only two permits left!
Most pristine trail register ever.
Noah and Tom had been out super late the night before and weren’t quite sure when they were going to be heading out, so we stayed in cell service to keep in touch while we arranged for a time to meet at the trailhead. But as 10am turned to noon and then slowly ticked towards 1pm, we agreed to go on ahead and wait for them at the campsite. We rearranged our bags, strapped our skis and boots onto the sides, put on our approach shoes, and hoisted our heavy packs on our backs for the trek up.
The first bit of the route was a mellow, well-maintained forested trail for about 3 miles. While the hiking part was easy, we (by that I mean, mostly I), was completely miserable with all the mosquitos and flies swarming around us. I had forgotten the bug spray. Rookie mistake. Every time we stopped to take a quick break, adjust layers, or grab a snack, we were quickly motivated to get moving again by the bugs biting at us any chance they got. We popped out of the treeline and headed across a ridge and climbed up to meet the toe of Sulphide glacier where the snow started more or less continuously around 5400ft. To my relief, this was where the bugs really started to disappear. We booted for a short period and decided to transition to our skis to take the weight off of our backs. Weston etched out “NOAH” in large letters and an arrow pointing in the direction we were heading in the snow where we stopped to transition. We headed uphill, with a bit of relief from our backs and chatted about some avalanche debris, speculated on how long ago those events may have occurred, and lamented the suncupped snow hoping that it wouldn’t ski too poorly the next day. We also passed Connor (who is part of Peaks of Life) who was coming down from guiding a on the mountain. Unfortunately, the as the slopes got steeper, it became apparent that the snow was too slushy and difficult to skin up so we switched back to booting the rest of the way.
We came over a ridge where we thought the campsites would be but found nothing in sight except a ridge to the west that climbed an extra 100 feet or so and a flat portion to the north.We saw some tents set up to the north and initially headed that direction, thinking that it might be a good place to set up camp since we’d be able to see Noah and Tom more easily. We ended up deciding to check out what was over the ridge to the west, so Weston went over to the tents and chatted with the climbers and asked them to point Noah and Tom in our direction if they happened to see them. The extra 120ft of climbing paid off and we finally found the camp area, the famed composting toilet, some wildflowers, and sweeping views of Baker and our climb ahead of us.
We snapped some photos, basked in the sun and started making dinner. We discussed whether we thought Noah and Tom ever started at the trailhead. Weston had cell service so tried to give Noah a call – it went to voicemail so we were hopeful that they were well on their way. We kept running back up to the ridge to see if we could spot them approaching. As I was waiting my for Mountain House beef stroganoff to finish cooking I spotted a person in the distance with skis strapped A-frame to his back. “Look! i think that’s Noah!” I motioned excitedly for Weston to come take a look. He joined me on the ridge and we squinted into the distance, straining to see if we would spot a second skier. A couple minutes later we saw a second person with skis on their pack and waited excitedly for them to come closer. Now, I know it’s not the most polite thing to do on a mountain, but we needed to communicate our location to them, so we decided to let out one good shout. “NOAHHHHH!!!” I yelled out waving my arms overhead. It was met with both skiers pausing for a moment, looking our direction, and a “WHOOOOHOOOO!!!” in return.
Photo by Noah Green.
They finally made it to us a short while later, just as the sun was beginning to set. We started to help them prepare their dinner, only to realize that neither of them had brought a stove…or any extra fuel. Awesome, we’ll make do. We boiled some water for them, gushed about the toilet views, and snapped sunset photos. Noah and Tom needed a quick rappelling crash course / refresher so I set up the rope and gave a brief demo while Weston set up the tent.
We were running low on fuel, trying to stretch it out our supply for two to make it for four. In order to do so, we came up with conservation tactics throughout the evening, including scooping up some snow in a pot and hoping it would melt out by morning so we wouldn’t have to use fuel to both melt and boil it.
We discussed the start time for the next morning. I wanted to start at 6:00am, but Noah seemed pretty set on a 7:00am start time (I knew that this really meant 7:30am). Feeling outvoted, I reluctantly resigned myself to it, and we settled in for some rest.
The alarm rang and I sat up in the tent, trying to wake Weston up. I finally crawled out, figuring we’d better get the equipment sorted (West and I had brought some carabiners, cord, and belay devices for Noah and Tom to borrow for the rappel), water filtered, breakfast and coffee made, camp tidied up, and bags packed. The boys made slow progress this morning, and to my frustration I was the only one ready at our agreed upon start time. I watched as our 7:00am start time crept past 8:00am. I was getting impatient. I get stressed about late starts – it gets hot, the snow gets slushy, and it means a later return to the car and subsequently back home. But at this point there was nothing I could really do about it.
We finally started off at 8:22am, starting on skins. We were going over foot-deep suncups. I worried about how the ski down would be. I was quiet and feeling increasingly irritated about our late start time as the sun started to beat down on us. I fumed internally and tried to bite my tongue. Weston asked me what was wrong and I shook my head angrily. I didn’t feel like this trip felt like there had been solid discussions on decisions that should have been made as a team. In my head, I was playing through how my ideal climb would have played out – this was not it. Through sullen tears, I finally told Weston what was going on in my head. It felt good to get it off my chest and I was finally able to push through most the the glacier as I let the resentment dissipate.
As we approached the last push towards the base of the summit pyramid we noticed some crevasses, had a brief discussion of whether or not to rope up, and ultimately opted not to. We stayed on our skis and skinned straight up to the left of the crevasses, noting them for our descent. We rolled into the base of the summit pyramid as the last party of the day.
Ahead of the boys for once.
We took a quick snack break, ditched our skis and ski boots, donned our approach shoes and started the scramble up. The route was straightforward and easy to follow, with rap stations set up along the way. We were behind a Canadian team that was roped up and ended up waiting around for a bit while they slowly picked their way towards the summit. We made sure to have careful foot placement to avoid knocking down loose rocks, and we were up in no time!
Signing the summit register.
Getting ready to rappel down.
The ski down was absolutely heinous. I thought for sure that since it was later in the day that the suncups would have softened up but most of them were a foot deep. It was hard on the knees and made me cranky so I was glad to get the skis off to pack up camp and make some food before the rest of the very hot slog out.
I took very few photos after this point. It was hot, there were more and more mosquitos and I was just so grateful to finally get back to the car.