Mount Shuksan sulphide glacier route as one day climb.
We were group of five climbers, arrived to the trail head about 8pm to find just one other car at the parking. We camped for few hours and began ascending at 2:30am. Trail was a good condition and fairly easy to navigate until above treeline. At this point, the trail kind of splits and can be deceiving. We kept to the left and soon realized that we heading nowhere. Climbed up the hill, sort of shortcut which was very bad idea and fairly dangerous, should've just retraced our steps back. But we made it up with no issues and continued on. Met a sunrise along the way right before hitting the snow. It was simply breathtaking. At the point we geared up with crampons and ice axes. It was very icy so we decided not to rope up. It was easy to navigate up using established footprint trail. Passed through few small crevasses and walked by couple larger ones. Got to the base of pyramid about 10:30. Up the pyramid was the a real challenge. Constantly scouting for the best approach, it took us about an hour to get up. Met couple other guys on the top, total 4 climbers for the day at this point. Weather couldn't be any better, with almost no wind we didn't want to start climbing back. Views were phenomenal with Baker next door and North Cascades 360 all around. We used rope to repel down and made back to the parking lot at 6:30pm making total 16 hours on the mountain.
It was one of the most spectacular climbs of my life.

Comments