Mt Shuksan via Fisher Chimneys in a day, Sept 11, 2014

No one looks back on their life and remembers the nights they had plenty of sleep.

Shuksan is an amazing mountain, standing at 9,131 feet it ranks as the 10th tallest peak in Washington (according to the Bulger list).  It's just east of Mt Baker, but it's not volcanic remnants, it's metamorphosed ocean basalt pushed up by tectonic action.  It can easily be seen by anyone who wants to take a drive up 542 to Artist Point in the summer or the Mt Baker ski area in winter.  The number of pictures that have been taken of this mountain are staggering.  I think Fred Beckey put it best, "Mt. Shuksan epitomizes the jagged alpine peak like no other massif in the North Cascades... it has no equal in the range when one considers the structural beauty of its four major faces and five ridges..." (Cascade Alpine Guide, Rainy Pass to Fraser River)

In terms of climbing there is a great variety here, from glacial slogs, to hazardous vertical ice, to technical vertical rock multi-pitch routes.  Also unique is convergence zone it lies within, with clouds coming directly out of the Pacific up the Strait of Juan De Fuca colliding with cold air from Canada.  This leads to the highest recorded snowfall in the world at the Mt Baker ski area (95 FEET in the 98-99 season).  Have you ever been on a chairlift with long sections dug out of the snow?  It's interesting.  Many an early season climb has been called off her due to weather.

In late August I set out with some friends to try the Fisher Chimneys route.  We read lots of reports, people printed out lots of beta........and I just brought a topo map and some honey stinger waffles. Well apparently waffles packages don't have good route beta and we got off route.  A word to those planning this climb, after you pass the north cascades sign you need to ascend above a cliff up to your left after a slight gully.......don't continue on trail toward the lower Curtis Glacier.

Past this sign continue on the trail, look at those trees to the left, scramble up that, don't keep going on the trail toward the Lower Curtis.  Photo by Luke Jennings

Beckey said something about the deepest gully. We looked for the deepest gully.  We found the deepest gully.  Beta on the route, it ain't the deepest gully.  To keep the story brief, low class 5 moves on water polished rock and moss with an overnight pack isn't the funnest.

OY! We've found the elusive alpine croc! This was when the climbing was still easy.

We bivied at the base of Winnies Slide, but the following day we decided to turn back.  Beer sounded better than a long day amongst other things.

Not a bad spot to spend the night

After that trip I was hooked,  I needed to get back, as soon as possible and complete this.  I also needed to get back with someone that would be happy about the steep glacial ice.  Kirsten had wanted to go on the original trip, but was stuck with work.  She happens to love ice, having done her fair share at Ouray.

So a plan was set, a single day push on a weekday to avoid crowds.  We had a brief meeting Tuesday night, decided to set out as light as possible without compromising safety, nothing extraneous.  Just a puffy, food, compass, knife and some tape.  I also brought a 3 ounce sawyer filter and planned to never carry more than a liter of water.  We tried to keep the gear light as well, but decided to each bring a standard axe and one nomic ice tool each, not knowing if we may need to descend a moat or crevasse and do some vertical climbing at one point.  We used a 60m half rope in case we decided to pitch out anything.  The rack was small since we knew there would be no sustained climbing.

Wednesday evening we set out from Seattle at around 8pm with an asphalt alpine bivy in mind.  Upon arriving in the lot around 11pm we found a flatter area of gravel to call home.  The moon was out in full force and we both pulled our sleeping bags over our heads to get some shade and break from the chilly breeze.  I had brought along my car camping bag, an original Therma-Rest synthetic hoodless bag from the early 90s, I call it the purple people eater.  I should also note at this point that I had been fighting a upper respiratory crud for about a week.  So inside my bag I had some taco time napkins to wipe my nose with.  What can I say, I keep it classy.

First alarm went off at around 3am I think, KG says, "it's going to be dark at the chimneys if we leave now".  I was warm.  I went back to sleep.

Another one went off, just a little more sleep......finally we got up and went about taping up feet, strapping the pointy bits on packs, and shivering.  At 5:15am we hit the trail with the moon still up.  A little bit before getting to Lake Ann we were treated to a gorgeous sunrise and alpenglow on Mt. Baker.  Being able to experience this with no one else around on a normally packed trail was truly special.

Once we hit the lake, at about 4 miles, we had a snack, drank some water (I love filters) and I finally added water to my bladder.  

This beautiful day hike destination was a only the start of our journey

From here we continued up trail to the North Cascades boundary, after the last switch back in trees we stopped.  We took off trail runners for favor of our mountain boots for the upcoming talus and scrambling.  I threw some plastic produce bags over the liner socks I had been wearing.  I always seem to sweat out my boots at some point faster than gore-tex can breath and this leads to freezing feet later on the glacier.  The vapor barrier liner works wonders, after a certain point your feet just stop sweating, not to say your liners aren't saturated.  With knowledge of the route we blasted across talus, up the first scramble, and then over the longer talus traverse.

A couple trail options exist going up the first step to the talus traverse, they all go.

From here the scramble starts, knowing it well now the route finding was no longer as stimulating, but the moves are fun enough to make up for that.  Two short class 4 bumps (I've heard an argument that one is low class 5) at the start are fun and a stairway type feature up high is just great.  I really like this scramble.

The second class 4 bump, fun fun.

I'm pretty sure KG liked it too

Upon topping out at the ridge to the upper White Salmon Glacier we realized it had only taken 45 minutes to ascend the full chimney complex, we were making great time.  We bumped across the short snow of the upper white salmon in boots with axes out and did the short talus/boulder crossing below Winnies Slide.  A lot more of the snow on this face had melted out since I was here last, exposing more actual glacial ice.  We decided to ascend climbers right, the most direct, shortest, and fastest path.  Out come the crampons, out come the tools, harness on, but the rope stayed in my bag.  The placements were quite secure and not too steep, especially considering we each had an ice tool for one hand.

Rolling in her 5.0, with the rag top down so her hair can blow

The bivy spot above Winnies Slide with the Upper Curtis Glacier behind

We got to the bivy spot about Winnies Slide, threw the pointy bits back on the bags and did a rock scramble to get on the upper Curtis.  I should have drank some water here, it turned out to be the last source on route.  The step off the rock on to the Curtis was easy, no moat crossing issues.  The route through crevasses had some interesting bridges and caves but was surprisingly straight forward.

Dramatic landscape

In the top right you can see table mountain, bellow it a slight pass of trees.  That's where the car is.  Also Lake Ann on the left.

We arrived at Hells Highway to find a solid snow bridge of ok width leading to the 50-55 degree slope.  It was very much ice down low and with crevasses around, enough to keep you awake.  We simuled up and things were going well.  Before starting the steep section I was french stepping to save my calves when my boot twisted out of the crampon.  Damnit.  Brief rant, what are you smoking petzl?  The side rear points on the 12 point vasak are wider than the vibram mulaz sole used on nearly every light mountain boot on the market.  What the hell did you design these around!!?  It's time to find something that really fits my Scarpa Rebel Carbons properly,

Me topping out on Hells Highway, the Upper Curtis behind with route start off to the left.

From here were finally got a look at the summit pyramid and started the slog section across the Sulphide Glacier.  This was flat and just seemed to drag on, after all we had done the slog was just a bit demoralizing. 

THAR SHE BLOWS!

We arrived at the base of the summit block around 12:30, we saw another team far up the gully descending.  We decided to take an actual break for a few minutes to eat real food.  One thing I've noticed on long days with minimal breaks is that my digestive system really shuts off.  I had to wait a few minutes before I could even think about eating my PB&J.  Once we were done with real food we decided that the groups descending were not fast enough for us to wait and hopefully down far enough that any rocks wouldn't gain a ton of momentum.  We set off for the scramble with the small rack, KG carrying the rope and me with a pack on.

We started a tad right of the normal main gully, but then realized the descending group was actually above this as well.  Judging by the amount of pointy things we saw back at the rock we assumed there were two teams up there.  I saw what looked like an easy path trending right, we followed that and soon found it led up to the SE ridge.  We had discussed taking the SE ridge before the climb, but found widely varying reports of the grade (one TR said they thought it was a 5.8) it had KG not wanting to lead in boots.  I went up the ridge toward a bulge, that looked too hard and exposed to do free, so we took a ramp to the left that dead ended in moves only appropriate for inspector gadget or gumby.  We down climbed a short bit of nearly vertical class 5 that was near the edge of my comfort limit to get back on easy bench.  Across the gully system a descending climber was coiling up rope, we yelled over to ask what he could see above us .  He said that he could see we should just take the SE ridge because what we just down climbed is harder.  The ridge is all an easy scramble with a couple steps up to around 5.7 that are quite short.  Armed with actual beta we set out for the ridge.  KG racked up, I flaked the rope, we set a belay and she was off and over the hump I had worried about while free climbing in no time.  She ran out the full rope and brought me up.  Suddenly that hump that looked very scary wasn't nearly as bad on belay.  The ridge continued like this, mostly class 4 scramble with very short mid class 5 steps on sound rock, only one or two placements per pitch needed.  I think it was on the 3rd pitch without much rope out that KG yelled out in elation that she was on the summit, the ridge had just flown by!

She really rocked this.

On the last bit to the summit she said that a crack was awkward, thankfully my boot was wide enough to torque in it to push through, two steps and there I was!

Repeating this pic because I like it and lets face it, KG looks a lot better than me

On the summit we each had some dark chocolate and took in the view.  Up in to Canada, over to Baker, Puget Sound, Baker Lake, and THE PICKETS!  Also got a nice view of Ruth, when I had looked over to Shuksan nearly a year ago to the day.  The more peaks you bag the cooler climbing in the Cascades becomes.  We didn't find any summit register, but there was this really cool quilt.

See that snowfield behind me?  Yup I was staring at this from there a year prior.

After spending all of about 15 minutes up there we knew it was time to get moving, we had hit the summit a mere 20 minutes away from our turn around time of 3pm.  While contemplating getting down the hard crack I realized there was no rap tat to be found.  No WAY people climbing the easier gully down climb that!  So I looked around and sure enough, just around the skiers left was a wide bench that you just walked on.  Neither of us had bothered to look right at that last bit, can't see the forest through the trees!  We decided to rap down the main gully after this because we had the rope out, the anchors were great and we didn't want to get ourselves committed to down climbing free if it turned out to be hard.  After a couple rappels I decided to just switch to down climbing to save time, we were really just walking backwards on a rope.

The Sulphide and Baker Lake from the summit pyramid

Once back to the gear we switched back to glacier travel mode and decided to just go across the sulphide sans rope, it's so featureless that there are minimal crevasses, and the route was incredibly solid.  The slog was uneventful, although even more dull than the way up.  At the top of Hells Highway we busted out the rope again to belay the down climb of 50-55 degree ice with crevasses below.  It's nice to have a little peace of mind above that.  We got out as close to the rollover as possible and set about making an anchor.  Picket wouldn't go.  Screws won't hold.  KG sunk the pick of her axe with the shaft perpendicular to the direction of pull, then set the nomic's entire pick in with the shaft parallel to the direction of pull.  Clipped in to the head of the nomic the theory being that if the ice tool pulled down slope the handle of the next axe would stop it.  Better than nothing.....and besides, I'm not falling anyway right!?

The down climb started well with defined steps in the upper portion and deep pick holes requiring no swinging of tools.  Halfway down where it turns from névé to ice things got more interesting, setting of the pointy bits was required.  I tried to be efficient by setting an axe low with my hand in high dagger, then working down as I moved before resetting.  It still felt like it took an eternity, that's what my calves and hamstrings were telling me at least.  Near the base I was out of rope, but had not crossed the bridge over the last crevasse.  I looked around trying to find a good belay stance, straddled one crevasse and contemplated sitting across it with my feet on the opposite wall.  Deciding that it would pretty stupid if I fell in while belaying I vetoed this idea.  I made an anchor similar to the one above and thought to myself "it's a good thing KG isn't falling".  I think her thoughts on the down climb were similar to mine, by the time the slop was flattening out she had to drop a knee to give her calves a break.  Now I understand the name hells highway.

We coiled the rope closer and set off across the Upper Curtis, watching what had been ice on rock earlier in the day turn in to a good size waterfall.  Going across the Upper Curtis you gain elevation again and my pace was dropping.  We drank all my water on the summit push and KG's was quite low.  I was also hungry.

Bridge and caves on the Upper Curtis

Thankfully there is a great glacial melt source at the rock above Winnies Slide and that knowledge kept me going.  We got to the rock, took off pointy bits, coiled up the rope, and scrambled to the bivy spot.  I collected a liter of water for my bladder, drank another liter (HELLOOOO BRAIN FREEZE!) and ate two bars.  Feeling like human beings again we now put the pointy bits BACK on to head over to Winnies Slide.  We saw a rap anchor on the rock going up that morning and decided it would be best to take this rather than climb exposed steep ice that we couldn't protect well.

KG was in the moat first and moving around down to the rap tat, which turned out to be about eight or nine feet above where the snow had melted to.  The rock was featureless.  Before I could say "well slap me silly and call me Shirley" KG had already sprung in to action.  I need shorter catch phrases.  She made the executive decision to make the most unique stemming move I have ever seen.  With her hands pushing on the featureless rock she kicked her feet in to the ice of the moat wall behind her.  Working up, backwards, body out horizontally.  I really wanted to take a picture, but I knew I had to get my butt over there with the rope.  I set about traversing the vertical moat wall so as to not position myself below where KG would be.  As I got to the tat she found good hands and swung one leg to the wall and got another knee up high.  Quite the impressive set of moves there, not sure she realized what she was going to be doing going in to it.  I got the pack off, pulled the rope and tried to flake it.  In the cramped quarters it had spun around, snagged, and now resembled Medusa's hair.  I worked as quickly as possible to thwart the evil snakes the rope had become, finally getting it going up to KG to thread through.  I wound up each end and threw them up and over the snow bank.  KG put herself on rappel and made the sweet sound of crampons on rock!  Once down in the moat KG began the awkward turtle descent, squeezing between a ten foot moat wall and rock.  Shortly down it becomes vertical, the rope wants to pull you to the rock where you have no feet, and it takes all you have to keep crampons on the snow.  Lots of banging noises, lots of metal scraping, lots of muttering like a sailor.  The only thing I could made out from all of this was "hey put a prusik on the rope before you do this ok!?".  Once the commotion died down for a few minutes I heard a hoot, she had made it out to the easy snow below the ice pitch in one piece.  Now it was my turn, I tied in a short prusik above my ATC figuring I would need to keep my hands up high with the rope between my legs to squeeze through the narrow passage.  I was right.  Coming in to the vertical section I squeezed through with one shoulder on ice and one against rock, I swung my feet down on to the ice out sideways and leaned backward.  If you came out of the womb backwards, holding on to the umbilical cord, bashing yourself against rocks, with sharp things on your feet than this would probably have been an accurate re-birthing experience give you some great new insight on life.  I was born in a normal fashion so for me this was just a royal PITA.  As I got out to the vertical descent some of the ice gave way under my right foot, sending my right shoulder in to the rock.  That was nice.  I didn't loosen grip on my brake hand, but man that prusik was a very good idea.  After my own round of cursing, shortly before getting to the point of pondering my own sanity, I had made it to an easy part of the moat and up on to the snow.  We pulled the rope as smooth and carefully as possible, thankfully it came through and no more shenanigans ensued.  This description doesn't portray the time spent I think this ate up over an hour of our time.  The sharp stuff went back on the pack and we set over the boulders and then crossed the final snow field as the sun went down.

Scrambling in to fading light.  The moat of Winnies re-birthing can be seen on the upper right.

While beautiful, this is one sunset that I did not truly enjoy, knowing that light fading meant we would descend all of the fisher chimneys in the dark.  It also occurred to me that while I had ample strength left I was starting to feel the effect of around 14 hours moving.  My steps just weren't as precise as normal.  While the chimneys are not technically challenging being tired, in darkness, with exposure we decided to use the existing rappel anchors in the chimneys.  Mentally we were both solid, we could effectively check over our set ups and still move quick enough.  Setting up rappels is a hell of a lot faster than a rescue after a fall.

Where did all the light go?

Following the "slow down, we are in a hurry" mantra we worked well as a team setting up the rappels.  Once through a section I would continue down route finding (having done this in the light before) while KG coiled the rope.  We took a rap off the upper ridge and one through the "bookshelf" section.  The area below the bookshelf is where the trail becomes scarce, but looking closely at rocks I could spot the lines where almost no moss was growing for down climbs to keep us on route.  We worked down to the trail section and down the two class 4 ramps in good time.  Not a word needed to be said about the rope work, we each had a job and knew it.  Crossing the talus field was actually quite easy at night, the cairns were easy to spot.  Once on the heather area above the last cliff band I somehow managed to get off trail though.  We looked around and could see trees below to our right, we knew that was the way to the last scramble, but not how to get there.  KG spotted what looked like a flat area leading skier right about 30 feet down, it turned out to be a well traveled trail once we got to it.  Moving at night is like having Ray Charles for your guide, but without the musical talent.  Going down the trail I spotted some bright red rap tat around a large tree to our left, we made it to the last scramble.  We set the rope on this again and started to coil.  KG was pulling one end of the rope through the anchor when I forgot our mantra of "slow down we are in a hurry".  I didn't see my end of the rope to start coiling.  Rather than wait until the mid mark was at the ring and start from that side I just flipped the coil around like an ADHD child opening a Christmas present.  The rope immediately turned it in to a PISSED OFF version of Medusa's hair.  Here we were a minute out from our last rappel and I just cost us time.  KG reminded me that if you just set the rope down it should come out just fine and not do this, I know, I know, I just get excited sometimes. Sigh.
While working the kinks out KG looked down and said "WTF IS THAT!?".  On the talus field below we could see two reflective eyes staring right at us.  They weren't big, however in my mind it must be the only black bear in the world not afraid of people.  Waiting to eat me.  That's when I realized they were coming up the slope towards us.  Oh god this how it ends.  They kept coming up the scramble route.  That's when I realized the eyes are quite small, I think it's just a squirrel.  Maybe a rabid squirrel.  I started the rappel towards the vermin of imminent death while kicking as many rocks as possible to scare it.  I stopped short of singing Liza Minnelli in self defense when the eyes disappeared.  I stayed on guard for the mutant bear-spider-rabid squirrel hybrid regardless though.

After crossing the short bit of scree our stashed trail runners were the greatest thing in the world.  Removing my plastic bag vapor barriers my liner socks put out a smell that could kill any animal, Thereby removing the fear of mutant killer animals.  A fresh pair of synthetic running socks on my pruned feet were wonderful.  We ate a few bars, drank some water and started moving.  The 5 miles out from here went without event.  Considering how long we had been out we were still moving quite fast.  I believe it was around a 3mph pace.  At the demoralizing 800 foot uphill climb back to the car I did break down a little and start asking where my tram was, maybe those euros are doing something right.  In runners with light packs the switchbacks truly were not that bad though and we were soon AT THE CAR!  It was around 1am.  We had been out for around 19 hours and 45 minutes.

I had the forethought to put two beers ISA in a cooler on ice along with my 20 ounces of chocolate milk (recovery drink of champions).  After some push back I also convinced KG to eat a yogurt that I had brought for breakfast, she agreed that it turns out that food is great.  On the way down toward Bellingham it became clear that I was just entirely too tired to make the drive all the way to Seattle.  We pulled off and took a bivy for Jesus for an hour or so in a church parking lot.  Waking up moderately refreshed I made the rest of the drive to Seattle, getting to the park and ride a bit before 6.  KG went home, showered, and immediately worked for 12 hours.  I was far more lame, I sent an email saying that I would not be in until the afternoon and slept a few hours.  I still felt like a zombie the rest of the day.

Overall I couldn't have asked for anything better from this climb.  While not the most technically challenging, I think it's one the most varied climbs of great quality, it goes down as my favorite climb in the Cascades to date.  It was the only longer climb that I have done in a push this year, which I really enjoy.  Moving faster and further through the alpine in a day is a great feeling.  Being on the move for so long gives you a better understanding of how your body works as well, what foods (and how little) you can eat, how much water you need, what stupid early 90s R&B song you need in your head to stay motivated.  It also forces you to keep alpine urgency in the front of your mind.  With so many changes of terrain this route REALLY emphasizes the need to have your systems dialed.  As the icing on the cake, this is my second year climbing frequently and KG's third.  We have both been working on the varied skills needed to climb in the alpine, but always go with extremely experienced partners.  This was our first technical climb with no mentor, no one elses judgement to fall back on but our own.  To make these calls on our own confidently and safely was a greater feeling than any physical high from the whole trip.  There is really something to be said for going through the alpine with autonomy.