Home > Trip Reports > Apr 7-8, Mt Shuksan Summit, Sulphide Glacier - Vid

Apr 7-8, Mt Shuksan Summit, Sulphide Glacier - Vid

4/15/12
WA Cascades West Slopes North (Mt Baker)
3435
4
Posted by Pierce on 4/9/12 8:35am
Vid - http://youtu.be/SCoTGJQhF0c


With the forecast for the weekend promising to be great, a group of friends and I set off to climb Mt. Shuksan via the Sulphide Glacer.  With trees blocking the road around 1,300ft we knew it was going to be a long slog.  Saturday evening we made it to around 5,000 feet and made camp on the ridge with great views of Mt. Baker. 

Sunday morning we started up the mountain just after 5am.  The nice thing about the road being blocked is we had the mountain all to ourselves.  We ditched our gear at the base of the summit pyramid, and started up the couloir.  We saw a couple other parties making their way up from the white Salmon glacier.

We boot packed it up the the summit pyramid.  The last few feet up the chimney were pretty sketch, rock, rime, and crumbly ice.  The three members of my party that climbed through first cleared out all the firm snow.  I was kicking myself for not bringing a 2nd ice tool.  But a little stemming and front pointing the exposed rock got me through.  A few minutes of epic views from the summit and then we started our downclimb. 

We knew we couldn't down climb the chimney we climbed up, so we worked our way climbers left and down climbed the firm snow there.  This is the way we should have ascended.

Once back at the skis we made our way back to camp.  Snow was great up, soft and light, a little wind affected.  Lower down we hit some crust which made for some ugly turns.  About a 1,000 lower we hit perfect buttery snow all the way to camp.  We loaded up our packs and and skied back down to the road, and the long slog back to the car.

A long two days, but well worth it!   
Thanks for the great pictures,video and report, and the wild beater wrecks as well, nice work all round!

More pictures from the trip can be seen on the link below;

http://www.thealpineobsession.com/mt-shuksan.html

nice trip guys and gal !

Way to go Ashley!

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apr-7-8-mt-shuksan-summit-sulphide-glacier-vid
Pierce
2012-04-09 15:35:23