July 28-31, 2005

MID-SUMMER OUTING NO. 3:  PICKET RANGE

Mt. Challenger Climbing Trip

Ross Lake
Big Beaver Landing
Luna Camp
Beaver Pass
Wiley Ridge
Eiley Lake & Wiley Lake
Challenger Arm
Mount Challenger (8207′)

Trip Report Summary

Region: Northwestern Washington Cascades

Sub-Region: Picket Range

Area: North Cascades National Park

Starting & Ending Point: Ross Dam Trailhead (Highway 20)

Way Points: Ross Lake Landing (trail hike);  Ross Lake & Big Beaver Landing (boat ride); Big Beaver Creek & Luna Camp & Beaver Pass (trail hike);  East Wiley Ridge shoulder & Eiley Lake & Wiley Lake & West Wiley Ridge Bench (off-trail hike & bushwhack & rock scramble)

Campsites: Beaver Pass & West Wiley Ridge Bench & Beaver Pass

Summit: Mt. Challenger (ascent & descent via Challenger Arm—Challenger Glacier—Northeast Face)

Approximate Stats: 42 miles traveled; 11,500 feet gained & lost.

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Full Trip Report

Seven of us signed on for this year’s Mid-Summer Climbing Trip—our third annual—into the North Cascades.  Joining me were Eric, Jon, Ryan, Kevin, Noah, and Dave.  Once again, Eric did a nice job of handling the pre-trip logistics;  the rest of us just needed to show up at the correct time with the correct gear.

For Kevin and me, Mt. Challenger represented a particularly important goal.  He and I and Laura had twice tried as a threesome to climb it via the Easy Ridge approach, and twice we had been rebuked by terrible weather.  Although Laura wouldn’t be physically present during this third attempt, her spirit was with us.  As a change of strategy, we decided to approach the mountain via Wiley Ridge—mainly because Kevin and I had too much emotional baggage associated with our previous Easy Ridge attempts.

Day 1 – Trailhead to Big Beaver Landing to Beaver Pass:

The summer air was hot and still when we gathered on the Ross Lake dock on Saturday morning.  At 10:00am, the water taxi showed up to whisk the first part of our group uplake to Big Beaver Landing.  About 20 minutes later, the taxi was back to get the second part.  (Future large parties take note:  The taxi operators impose a limit of six passengers per boat, and no amount of pleading or cajoling would get them to squeeze in our seventh person.)

At 11:20am, we hoisted backpacks and started hiking up the Big Beaver Trail.  Although our original plan called for hiking up the Little Beaver Trail, we quickly changed this plan at the Marblemount Ranger Station, where a concerned ranger warned us about unpleasant brush and stream washouts on the latter trail.  Whether his warnings were overblown or not, we can definitely report that the Big Beaver Trail has received lots of maintenance recently and is in excellent condition.  We spent the entire hot, humid afternoon hiking 13½ miles up the wonderfully shady trail to 3600-foot Beaver Pass, arriving circa 6:00pm (6.7 hours from landing).  The established campsite located just south of the pass was quite clean and tidy but very buggy.

Day 2 – Beaver Pass to West Wiley Ridge Bench:

Our entire second day involved off-trail travel southwesterly along Wiley Ridge toward Mt. Challenger.  We left the Big Beaver Trail about 200 yards north of our camp and headed down to the creek, easily crossed on a log, then continued up the opposite slope.  The lower area was quite brushy, with typical creek-bottom growths of devils club, but we soon entered a swath of dense, brush-free forest.

This forest allowed for easy cross-country travel up the steep nose of Wiley Ridge and would have been downright pleasant if not for one thing: bees…or wasps…or hornets…or yellowjackets…or whatever the heck they were!  We never made a positive identification of them, probably because we were all running and jumping and screaming so much, but they certainly identified us!  After several separate encounters with the little marauders, our group had collected at least 20 stings.  Kevin alone unluckily accounted for a dozen of these stings.

At an elevation of about 4500 feet, heavy brush clamped down on our open forest.  We struggled uphill, piecing together little weaknesses and clearings in the brush as best we could.  Gradually, we veered to the left, ascending a small creek channel for several hundred feet and then clawing up a brush-and-tree-covered rib with rocky outcrops.  Our progress was slow and our morale was low.  To make matters worse, the threat of encountering more bees/wasps/hornets/yellowjackets kept us continuously on edge;  at any moment, our next step could be a seriously regrettable one.  But sometimes it really is darkest just before the dawn: after battling over a particularly brushy outcrop, we suddenly popped onto a brushless knob at 5400 feet (2.8 hours from pass).  Above us, delightful heather slopes led upward to the ridge crest.  Surprisingly, a well-defined climbers’ path extended both upward and downward from the knob.  Very interesting.  None of us had read or heard any mention of a path in this area.

After resting and having an early lunch on the knob, we headed up the path, which took us over several heather benches and then across a steep grassy slope at 6300 feet.

This path eventually faded away, but we had no trouble navigating up, down, and around a succession of talus basins, rocky ribs, and rounded crests.  With every turn, we were treated to improving views of Luna Cirque and the jagged Picket Range peaks.

We took another long break at partially frozen Eiley Lake (6.0 hours from pass), where Eric braved a full-body plunge into the frigid water.

Jon spent some time re-dressing his heels, which had been blistered during yesterday’s trail hike.  These blisters had become large, oozing wounds during this morning’s cross-country ascent, and he was in obvious pain.  We all quietly wondered whether he would be mobile enough for tomorrow’s summit attempt.

More up-and-down traversing over scree, talus, and snow took us past glacier-rimmed Wiley Lake and over a gentle 7100-foot knoll.

While descending the other side of this knoll, I abruptly encountered a most wonderful feature: a grassy bench overlooking the Challenger Glacier, with a stunning view of Mt. Challenger above and a tiny stream nearby.  As a lot, we climbers dream about finding campsites this splendid, so I immediately knew where our group would be spending the night.

One by one, Kevin, Noah, Ryan, Eric, Dave, and Jon came hiking down to the bench, each flashing a huge grin.  It was just before 5:00pm (8.9 hours from pass), which meant that we would have ample time to soak up the magnificent scenery before bedtime.

Day 3 (AM) – Mt. Challenger Climb:

We awoke at 4:00am in order to get an early start on our climb.  It was chilly and breezy in camp, and high clouds obscured the summits of the surrounding peaks.  Kevin and I worried aloud about the prospect of getting weathered off Mt. Challenger for a third time!  We could only hope that stable weather would prevail for at least a few more hours.

At 5:00am, in eerie gray twilight, we left high-camp and started descending a moderately steep hillslope to the Challenger Glacier’s snout 700 feet below.  By the time we reached the glacier a half-hour later, most of the ominous clouds had dissipated, and gorgeous orange alpenglow was highlighting the Picket peaks.

We spent nearly an hour donning crampons, untangling Kevin’s new 60-meter rope, and affixing prusik slings.  As two rope teams, we then began negotiating our way across the glacier’s heavily crevassed lower slopes and up the lightly crevassed upper slopes.  The Challenger Glacier is expansive and remarkably beautiful in a wild but graceful way;  no wonder it has gained such fame among Washington climbers.

We easily zigzagged around the high wind cirque and yawning bergschrund to reach a broad saddle in the summit ridge.  A short, steep snowslope above the saddle transitioned into a small snow arête, which ended at the summit rocks.

My first close-up view of the summit horn gave me shivers—perhaps due to its legendary status as much as its intimidating steepness.  A short Class 3 scramble over loose rock took us to the base of the classic route that goes up the horn’s west face.

Being veteran victims of Mt. Challenger’s wrath, I got the honor of leading the summit pitch and Kevin got the honor of belaying.  My hands were already sweaty with anticipation, despite the cool morning air.  I readily ascended a steep 15-foot dihedral, appreciating the fixed pitons along the way, to reach the 5.7 crux move, which involves getting over a little bulge.  All I care to say about the crux is that I…ahem…got over it.

Another 15 feet of exposed 5.0 climbing on solid blocky granite ended at a tiny belay/rappel notch a short distance below the actual summit.  I belayed Kevin up, at which point he unroped and made the breathtakingly exposed scramble over to the summit.  Jon, Ryan, Dave, and Eric (Noah had opted out) soon came through the notch and scrambled over to join Kevin, using his safety sling for protection on the final move.  By 9:35am (4.6 hours from high-camp), we six were huddled on the small summit, feeling giddy with delight.

Knowing that we still had a full day ahead, we quickly reversed our scramble …

… and made one rappel to get off the summit horn.

A little later, while retracing our route down the glacier, we passed a party of three ascending climbers.  They had come up Wiley Ridge several hours behind us yesterday and were camped at Eiley Lake.  We exchanged information with them before continuing down the glacier and hiking back up to our high-camp, which we reached at 12:30pm (2.4 hours from summit).  As inviting as this campsite was, we felt compelled to make Beaver Pass by nightfall so that the following day would not be excessively long—possibly pushing us beyond our 3:00pm water taxi pick-up time.

Day 3 (PM) – West Wiley Ridge Bench to Beaver Pass:

It was about 1:15pm by the time we packed up camp and started back along Wiley Ridge.  Although we had hoped to short-cut some of the ups and downs, there really weren’t many opportunities for such time and energy savings.  In the end, we pretty much retraced our previous steps the whole way to the 5400-foot knob.  From the knob, however, we followed the climbers’ path down to the left, hoping that it would circumvent some or all of the brush and rock outcrops we had encountered on our ascent.  Noah took the lead here and did a commendable job of staying on the path, which became progressively more faint.  After a descent of about 400 feet, the path disappeared completely at the head of a dry streambed.  We slipped and scootched down mossy rocks in the streambed for another 500 feet or so, then veered rightward onto a timbered rib.  After a short stretch of brush, this rib widened into a broad, open, densely forested slope.  Noah stayed out front nearly all the way and somehow had enough reserve energy to maintain a continuous monologue.

During our forest descent, we were wary of further run-ins with the dreaded and despised stinging insects.  We walked briskly, and we would break into a run at any hint of a stinger close by.  Near the bottom of the forest, shortly before crossing Big Beaver Creek, I finally felt that I could relax a bit.  Naturally, I paid a stiff price for my unwarranted lapse of caution.  The price was about 12 to 15 stings on my legs and stomach!   You better believe that got me running again!  Miraculously, nobody else got stung this whole time.  We crashed through the valley-bottom devils club and strolled into mosquito- and fly-infested Beaver Pass Camp shortly before 7:00pm (5.5 hours from high-camp) feeling tired, sore, and happy.

Day 4 – Beaver Pass to Big Beaver Landing to Trailhead:

Our main task for today was to hike the 13½ miles back to Big Beaver Landing.  This would normally be a fairly simple matter, but Jon’s heel wounds had gotten worse each day.  He’d already earned the Most Inspirational award of our group for having persevered through three painful days, but now there was a real concern as to whether he could cover the trail distance before our water taxi pick-up time.  Eric came to the rescue with a pair of lightweight sneakers that he’d been using for camp shoes.  Miraculously, his shoes fit Jon’s feet perfectly and did not apply any heel pressure, thereby allowing for a normal stride.

Kevin left camp at 7:10am, and the rest of us were on the trail by 7:30.  We all enjoyed several hours of cool morning air before the midday heat set in.  We arrived at Big Beaver Landing individually between 11:45am and 12:45pm, with plenty of time to revel in the refreshing water of Ross Lake.  Later, while flopped out on the sun-bleached wooden dock, Eric proclaimed that “dock time” is every bit as sacred as “summit time” on a trip of this sort.  None of us had the energy or motivation to argue.

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