When Jim and I decided to attempt the Picket Traverse, we immediately thought of Kevin, George, and Fay. Three people crazy enough to think this sounded like fun. We could not have put together a better team to deal with the physical and emotional demands of a trip of this nature. Some how everyone kept their sense of humor over our 9-day adventure and the lack of personal space was not an issue. Never have I been on a trip with so many group discussions on which route to take. Then again I have never been on a trip with so many hidden features that did not show up on our topo maps.
The plan was to start at the Ross Lake Trailhead, take the water taxi to Little Beaver Trailhead, hike up to Whatcom Pass, traverse around Whatcom Peak (the tip of the Northern Pickets), cross the Mt Challenger Glacier, round Phantom Arm to Pickell Pass, continue on to Picket Pass, cross under the Southern Pickets, carry-over Elephant Butte, hike out Stetattle ridge and down the Sourdough Trail to Gorge Lake. Jim Aga signed on to be our ground-man responsible for sending us weather several times a day and keeping track of us.
After doing the morning car shuttle, we headed down the Ross Lake trail to catch the water taxi. The weather was spitting rain and cool. Perfect hiking weather.
Group on Boat ride up Ross Lake, ready for an adventure
Day 1 always sucks. Packs are heavy. There are no views. And every tree across the trail feels like a show stopper. Our goal was 14 miles to Twin Rocks Campground. We had too many obstacles on the trail so after 9 and half hours we decided to find anything flat and camp. Smart thing because it started to rain minutes after we got our tents up.
We needed to get an early start on Day 2. This day had 4500 feet of elevation gain and almost 10 miles. We needed to get to Perfect Pass to be back on schedule. Soon after we started, we broke out into the valley floor with waterfalls pouring off Wiley Ridge and views of Whatcom Peak.
As we climbed out of the valley floor up towards Whatcom Peak, Mt Challenger came into view. We had to cross the glacier on Day 3 and I was relieved to see so few crevasses. Mt Challenger is one of my favorite mountains. Seeing it always raises my spirits.
Soon we were on the long traverse around Whatcom Peak. Snow cover was outstanding making for an easy crossing and good climbing.
After a break halfway around, we began the long, 1000+ ft climb to Perfect Pass. We arrived in time to find camp spots off the snow. Thankfully we were travelling during the summer solstice which offered up lots of daylight, a true blessing since we travelled an average of 10.5 hours per day.
We woke to blue skies and a beautiful view of Mt Challenger. After breakfast, we headed up Whatcom Peak, one of our few peak goals on this trip. After a 1000 foot snow climb, we hit the summit ridge which was fun class 3 scrambling.
From the summit, we could see Luna Peak and the Chilliwack Mountains.
After a long summit stay, we headed down, packed up camp, roped up, and headed across the Challenger Glacier.
The glacier crossing went incredibly well. We crossed through the West Challenger notch onto the Solar Glacier which was correctly named. Had to be 100 degrees on the Solar Glacier. The snow was soft and knee deep. Frustration was high. After 45 minutes, we cleared the glacier and began our traverse to Phantom Arm.
The base of Phantom Arm presented a very steep snow finger. We opted to rope up and put in snow pro. For the next 3 days, we lived in our harnesses.
As each person crested the top of Phantom Arm, gasps could be heard. We had our first views of the Southern Pickets having travelled through the Northern Pickets all day long. We took a break to absorb the view.
We could see Pickell Pass, now we just had to get there. It should be an easy traverse under Phantom Peak. We were hit by our first cliff band not shown on our topo maps. We roped up, set some snow pro, and Kevin teased out away off the cliffs. Once we unroped, we were off to Pickell Pass and camp.
Upon arrival at Pickell Pass, we discovered no dry ground. We would be sleeping on snow. We climbed up the ridge another 100 feet to an outcropping of trees over the cliffs. Fay was able to tie her one man tent to a tree and perch herself on dry ground. The rest of us settled for a dry kitchen.
With views on all sides…
And some place to take our shoes off and let our feet dry out.
In the morning, I peaked out the side of the tent to see what kind of weather we had and was treated to this view. I could not have staged the photo if I tried. I am not that creative.
The route off Pickell Pass involved climbing up to the end of the ridge and then slithering down the cliffs to the snow field. We opted to rappel off a tree down the steep heather to an equally steep snow slope. To distract myself, I took pictures of West Fury Peak. It is on my list for next year.
Kevin rappelled last and decided to drag the rope across the snow slope to saving from pulling it on the steep heather.
After traverse out into the middle of the snow slope, we looked for a continuous snow couloir to take us down 2000 ft to the bench under West Fury. Our route description had us hug the rock cliffs under Pickell Pass.
Eventually we ran out of snow, transitioned to steep heather, and hit a short 30 foot cliff. We setup a rappel off a group of trees and soon found ourselves on the snow again.
After a break in the shade provided by a huge bolder in the middle of the basin, we were off to traverse under West Fury and find the hidden, magic gully that would take us back up 2000 feet to Picket Pass. After doing a bushwack through the forest, we were treated to this beautiful narrow gully that climbed the hillside at a moderate grade for almost 2 hours.
Near the top of the gully, there was a heather slope leading out toward Picket Pass. The traverse across the basin was straight forward and noneventful. When Jim crested Picket Pass, we declared ourselves halfway.
Though we travelled over 10 hours, we arrived in time to setup camp and enjoy an amazing sunset. One none of us will ever see again. Very special moment.
Looking back at Pickell Pass, we all secretly hoped the next few days would go well so we did not have to turn around and go back to where we had come from.
The morning brought the greatest challenge of the trip, how to get off Picket Pass. Though we had lots of beta, the terrain was tricky and everything short of straight forward. Since we were all pretty wiped out, we decide to cut the traverse of the Southern Pickets into 2 day and just drop to the McMillian Tarn instead of trying to do the entire traverse to McMillian Pass. This would also allow us to travel under the McMillian ice falls the next morning instead of in the heat of the day.
As we dropped off the pass, we found ourselves accessing the snow field via a collapsed cornice.
The collapsed cornice was the easiest part of the day. The next 8 hours involved lots of roped climbing, dropping steep snow by facing in, traversing wet rock slabs, working our way around broken snow slabs, and rappelling off of trees. Eventually we found the heather ramp noted in our route beta. As promised it lead to a gully which easily dropped to the McMillian Tarn.
When we reach the tarn, we were all feel good about not having to go backwards. Our weather report for the next day was good which would allow us to cross the McMillian cirque. If we could tease out the route.
Though it rain during the night, we woke to blue skies. We wondered how many people had ever camped at the McMillian Tarn. Definitely less than 100 people ever. Maybe more like 50. It was too bad. This place was beautiful. The Southern Pickets on one side of the cirque and waterfalls on the other. Cliffs all around.
Our day began similar to the day before with a group discussion on where to go. What was the route description trying to tell us?
The tricky and dangerous part of the day was getting under the ice falls. We also had to cross a steep gully which most likely contained a waterfall.
When we reached the gully, it did contain a waterfall but it also had a decent snow field in it. We opted to rappel to the snow and climb up the class 3 rock slabs on the other side. The route went extremely well. We soon found ourselves looking at the ice falls. Our route was clear.
While observing the basin, a large chunk of ice came off the ice falls and tumbled clear down the slope and over our route. As we stood there with our mouths hanging open, we all agreed to get to the other side as quickly and as safely as possible. Regrouping for a break once we cleared the danger zone.
Crossing under the ice falls was amazing. They are so powerful. It was quite humbling. Once across, we found a nice outcropping a safe distance from the falls where we were able to watch chucks of ice break off and tumble down the slope.
From here, we started the long climb out of the McMillian Cirque. Just when we thought it was snow the entire way, we came across a small glacier with lots of open cravasses. We slowly worked our way through them and were quickly back on task of climbing to the McMillian / Elephant Butte Pass.
As we neared the top of the pass, the snow greatly steepened. This was definitely a no fall zone so we all took our time and kicked in good steps.
As I came to the pass, I was greated by a smiling Jim. We had just completed the Picket Traverse. There was no going backwards. From here, we were going out the Stetattle Ridge. Jim had attempted the traverse twice before but was weathered out and had to turn around both times.
The pass was full of snow. No dry ground in sight. We still had day light so we decided to head up Rhino Butte and look for dry ground on the top. Make ourselves a summit camp.
The summit did not disappoint. It came with an amazing view of West and East Fury as well as Luna Peak. Not to mention the Southern Pickets, Davis Peak, and Jack Mountain.
As we sat around our dry kitchen complete with back rests, we congratulated each other on the trip and toasted to its completion with some celebratory scotch that George carried in. We later realized we celebrated a few days too early.
Our weather forecast for the night was no rain but a marine layer was coming in. Instead of sleeping on the snow, Jim and I opted to sleep on the rock slabs and deal with the dew which turned out to be a good decision because Kevin and George woke the next morning to a tent full of condensation.
After 6 days of clear mornings, we woke to a marine layer which had engulfed us. We were in the cloud. Since the terrain was mellow, we had no trouble packing up and heading off into the fog. Our plan was to run the ridge over Rhino Butte, then Hippo Butte, and finally over Elephant Butte before hitting Stetattle Ridge.
Soon we found a 200 foot cliff off the end of Rhino Butte, we would have to go back over the summit and down the way we had come up. After looking at Hippo Butte and seeing the same problem, an easy side west of the peak and a cliff east of the peak, we decided to go around.
Elephant Butte is the major peak on the ridge and had a very inviting west ridge. The topo maps showed a nice arm which ran down the east side. Our first mistake was trusting Topo yet again.
The climb up Elephant Butte was quite delightful. We were on the top in a little over an hour. After a long break, we headed down the east side. First thing we found was an over hanging cliff which we needed to rappel.
After the rappel, we were on the long arm of Elephant Butte full of heather, rocks slabs, and snow. Quite beautiful.
The arm also contained its share of little obstacles. Short cliff sections. Some we were able to down climb. Some we had to rappel. And others had steep snow which we had to rope for and back down.
In the end, we dropped off the arm to the west and ran the snow around to the east face. Phew! Then we proceeded to wrap around too far and end up in snow fields that went no where. After climbing out of a 100 foot drop that took us no where. We opted to drop down to a flat spot and camp for the night.
Out came the rope and the snow pro, Kevin lead the pitch down to flat ground. We definitely celebrated too early. We were stuck on Elephant Butte. Dang it!
We did find a place in the basin to get all the tents off snow and have a dry camp. It was a bit tight but everyone held their spirits up.
The next day we took a different route and soon found ourselves off Elephant Butte and heading up to Stetattle Ridge and the long hike out. The ridge is quite beautiful with bumps along the way. We all talked about coming back on a backpacking trip to just do the ridge walk. The views are some of the best in the Cascades and are easily obtained by backpackers.
The only problem with Stetattle Ridge is it goes on forever. Only 5 miles as the crow flies. But with all the ups and downs, it felt like 11 or 12 miles. But we all agreed it was beautiful. Cliffy on the left and flat on the right.
We finally gave up and made one last camp. It was totally worth it to take in the views. And we finally were able to take off our helmets and harnesses.
Our camp was tight but by now it felt normal to have our two tents touching. It did make it really easy to talk while in our sleeping bags.
The next morning we packed in record time. It is easy when all your food is gone and you no longer need any gear. I just shoved things in. As we headed down the last ridge, I found myself wondering how long it would take for the trip to sink in. What an accomplishment. I can’t believe how much fun I had. I also can’t believe I think this is fun.
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