North Face of Mt. Shuksan - June 22-23, 2002


With somewhat set plans to climb the north face that weekend we continually checked the updated weather reports as the week progressed.  By Friday they were predicting warm weather Saturday and a chance of showers Sunday.  Not a great forecast, but Dan Goering, Prash Bhat, Andrew Keleher and I arrived at the Mt. Baker ski area parking lot at noon, having stopped along the way for a leisurely breakfast.  



We head out with Dan humming the theme from "The Magnificent Seven", even though there only four of us.  The north face route is the central snowy section along the left skyline.  

We hiked a short ways up the left most utility road at the ski area before beginning a gradual descending traverse into the White Salmon drainage.  It was somewhat brushy with at least one annoying stream crossing, but nothing too terrible.  We arrived at camp (the saddle in the center of the above picture) around 4:30 and immediately set about some serious napping before rousing briefly to pitch the tents, cook dinner, and crawl in our sleeping bags.  

We woke the next morning at 3:00 AM and I was initially heartened to notice the snow underfoot was quite firm, until I realized that this was only where the snow was packed and the untouched snow was quite soft.  We packed everything up (this would be a carryover) and decided to check out the base of the climb.  


The route traverses hard left from the saddle before turning back hard right and then going straight up.  

The was snow kind of soft, the clouds were rolling in, but other than that it looked pretty nice.  Really kind of a toss up.    

        Dan: "I don't know, what do think?"
        Greg: "I don't know, what do think?"
        Dan: "I don't know, what do think?"
        Greg: "I don't know, what do think?"
        Dan: "Let's just go for it."
        Greg: "Okay."



The sun also rises.  



Dan and Prash going up the main face.  It's about 45 degrees.  

Because the snow was soft our plan was to just move fast without placing much pro (just a couple pickets for show).  We stayed roped up in teams of two because of the crevasse danger.  


Andrew below.  



After topping out on the face we eagerly removed pesky crampons.  



The north side of the summit pyramid.  

We made the mistake of going around to the right and ascending Hell's Highway to get to the south facing summit gully.  You lose a lot of elevation that way so going to the left probably makes more sense.  


A view of Baker with clouds above and below us.  We  reveledin our good fortune.  



Climbing the central gully while other parties descend.  It was fairly easy to go up but on the way down we belayed a couple tricky sections.  

Click here for a panoramic shot looking north from the summit.



Prash and Dan talking about all the people they've bumped into on top of Shuksan.  



Arm's length summit shot of myself in the tradition of a previous trip report .  


We descended via Hell's Highway and the White Salmon Glacier (~2.5 hours from base of pyramid to base of White Salmon glacier).  Trip Tip:  Not wanting to retrace our descending bushwhack traverse, on the way back we climbed about 1000 feet up the prominent snow slope just past the last of the rock cliffs and from there traversed at an even elevation (~4300') to the ski area.  By staying on snow we avoided a lot of shrubbery and stream crossings (~3 hours).  

HOME