Decided to try an easier peak with a little bit of glacier travel for practice. Got to the trailhead a little late, 10:00 AM. After a brief rain shower, the weather opened up for a little while. The trail to Hannegan pass is in good shape. A few muddy spots, but mostly snow-free until the top. This is a great valley hike to high meadows and a camp. The wildflowers along the trail are opening up nicely. The heather at the top is still mostly under snow, but it won't be long. No bugs! Is it really July? From the pass the way was on snow for the remaining 2 miles and 2,000 vertical feet. Route finding wasn't too bad, although it began to snow (July 1!) at about 5,800 feet. From 6,000 feet up, the way was on a glacier. We saw no crevasses, but roped up anyway to be on the safe side. There is some brief exposure in places. Visibility became limited until just below the summit, then things opened up nicely. Views included Nooksack Cirque on Shuksan, and Mt. Challenger. Could not find the summit register. Oh, well. I guess we'll have to come back again sometime.

Hannegan Pass, Hannegan Peak, 6-17-03 Road to trailhead is clear now, last time I was up this way there was a mudslide across the road. Trail is in excellent condition to Hannegan camps except for some snowbridges which were sometimes difficult, [over or around]. They were mostly all melted out but one small one on my way down. That should be gone by this weekend. Snow starts at the camps and was fairly steady all the to Hannegan Peak. The Pass was easy to get to and the Peak was a little more difficult but worth it. Hot muggy day. Very few bugs except around the Pass but they were thirsty ones

All the new snow tempted me into wading back into winter. Skied from Mt Baker highway to Hannegan Pass trailhead, about 8 miles roundtrip. No Snow Park Pass required. Snow depth ranged from 0-24 inches, with bare patches being under dense hemlock stands. Light snow added to the festive loads on already burdened firs. Views of the valley opened within the last 1.5 miles. Didn't see anyone. This is one of the first ski trips in which I've had the grip wax perfect, such a pleasure. Never used the climbing skins. Stopped at the North Fork Brewery and Beer Shrine on the way back, good food and beer

What an awesome climb Although this is regarded as a better ski trip, we decided to leave our skis at home since the snow deposits have been so low and headed up the trail at 8am this morning (Left Everett at 430am) It is such a mild trail for the first mile or 2, and then gradual ascends steeper until you get to Hannagen Pass at about mile 4. This is where the snow begins and does not end. Good steps were already there for us, and once we gained about 500 feet we donned our pons, and started the traverse on the steep slopes way below ruth. We then got to the saddle below the mountain and began the final ascent of 1100 feet on the Ruth Glacier (very tame, no rope or harnesses) There were only about 5 visible crevasses which were larger, but they were way off route except for one which was easy to negotiate. We arrived at the summit at noon with hardly any winds and incredible views. We left at 1245 and arrived at the car at 315. Good Times www.nwog.org

Eric: ""Dude, what time is it?"" Will: ""nine"" Eric: ""at night!?"" Ah the sure sign of a restless mountaineer itching for a crack-of-dawn start to a long day of mountain climbing in late September. Started out on Tuesday on the Hannegan Pass Trail in the incredible fall weather that everyone else has been experiencing. Because of a full summer of hiking the hike up and over Hannegan and down the Chilliwack Valley went quite quickly. The trail to Hannegan is in perfect condition even with the brush completely cleared out. Someone mentioned significant bugs in this area. Unless they have been dramatically reduced, they don't know what they're talking about! The small flies are still a presence, but not even approaching the notorious insanity of Ruth Creek Valley in August. The trail down into the Chilliwack was in pretty good shape, but with a few easy blowdown and a little brush. Certainly hikeable. The turnoff for Easy Ridge is not signed but is quite obvious. It comes after hiking about two nearly flat miles from Copper Creek and just after first being able to actually see the Chilliwack River. The trail leads easily to the river. There is no log crossing close by this year, but the ford is easy (not so earlier in the season). The trail continues directly across the river heading directly into a tunnel of brush. This first third of a mile is definetely quite brushy and with numerous annoying blowdowns. After that though the trail leaves the valley bottome and after a little more easy huckleberry type brush in timber becomes almost brush free. The blowdown do significantly lessen also, but remain a presence all the way up. None of them are all that problematic. Also take note that the first third of the hike to the ridge is very steep. It does get better, but however you look at it, this hike is a workout. The ridge saddle is reached almost simultaneously with pretty subalpine meadows with really good blueberries. A climber's trail heads up the ridge to the right. This trail is fairly easily followed along the ridge until just before Easy Peak. The peak itself is a somewhat loose class 2 scramble and is accessable to adventuresome hikers (those are the only ones who will be here in the first place). We hiked all the way from the trailhead to here the first day so we camped just below the scramble next to a small pond. Water is available from small ponds all along Easy Ridge including on top of but not beyond Easy Peak. Some of these may dry up during periods of very dry weather (does that ever happen here?). Very good views available here, and you're almost assured to have very little company. After the long September night, we awoke to clear skies for what was supposed to be our summit day. We headed up the ridge in cold, windy conditions. We dropped down meadows and talus on the south side of the ridge to pass at 5200ft a rock buttress desending from Whatcom Peak. Just beyond this is the infamous Imperfect Impass. Arghh... We got one look at this thing and decided it was a no go. Well, I wasn't quite convinced, so I scrambled out a ways, Eric followed and we both got mega sketched after about eight feet. It was cold, windy, slabby, loose, and had absolutely terrifying exposure. Maybe someone could rig up a belay or something if they were really really determined but would have a nasty pendulum fall to fear. That description was for the upper ""crossing"" at about 5200ft. Supposedly there is also a saner lower crossing about 1000 feet further down. We knew full well that we didn't have time for that so, again we tucked our tails neatly between our legs and headed back. I suppose just to prove to ourselves that we still had balls we picked out a route on the southeast side of Whatcom peak that looked doable but neither of us knew anything about. We headed up to give it a try, found horribly loose class 4-5 rock, got sketched, thank god found a suitable rappel anchor and just barely (by two feet!!) made a single rope rappel back to a class 2 ledge at the base of the crap. Yeah that was dumb... We wasted a very rare perfect weather day in the Pickets! This morning, we awoke at the more reasonable hour of 7:30 to dreary skies and hiked out about as fast as we could (the hike over Hannegan is a killer) but were still met by rain half way down Ruth Creek. Of course the skies were clear in Bellingham. Arghh... I don't know how many times I've said this but, give this one more time! We could have found a better crossing of the impasse if we had just had a day or two more.