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Matt Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 4307 | TRs | Pics Location: Shoreline |
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Matt
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 2:18 am
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Picket Pass Traverse, via Little Beaver Trail, Whatcom Pass, Whatcom Peak, Challenger Col, Phantom Arm, Pickell Pass, Swiss Peak, Picket Pass, McMillan Cirque, Elephant Butte Bypass, Stetattle Ridge, Sourdough Trail.
Dates: July 19-27, 2008
Party: Matt Burton, Mike Torok, Billie Butterfield, Paul Bakke
This report covers Day 6 of the trip. Previous segments are:
Days 1-3, Into the Pickets
Days 4-5, Cloudbound at Pickell Pass
The rest of the trip will be posted later.
Day 6: Out of Pickell Pass, Up Swiss Peak, Onward to Picket Pass
Day 6 Map (red line)
Morning at Pickell Pass
Morning brought clear skies and rosy dawn light. A few valley clouds dissipated quickly in the sunlight.
The cairn west of camp last night The cairn west of camp this morning Triumph last night Triumph this morning Alpenglow on Shuksan A cloud waterfall in the distance
We could finally see that layout of the terrain around us.
The basin behind us curving back to Phantom Arm. The slope north of Pickell Pass, leading up to Swiss and down to Goodell Creek. Picket Pass on the opposite side of Goodell Cirque
Getting Off Pickell Pass
Our first challenge was to get off Pickell Pass. The darn thing had a huge cliff dropping on the east side toward Goodell Creek, and steep faces running upward toward the peaks at each end. Somewhere high on the north end was supposed to be an exit onto the slopes of Swiss Peak, where we could descend into the valley. Yesterday we had scouted upward a few hundred feet in the fog, but didn’t see any likely exit.
Today we went higher, about 450 feet uphill, almost right to the base of Spectre’s cliffs. There we found the exit ramp, which including some intimidating large steps between steep rock and slippery greenery. We worked our way across blockier rocks and greenery, then up and across to snowfields, where we could kick steps with more assurance.
Hiking up from our camp toward the edge of Spectre Hiking past heather above the pass Getting off the pass onto steep rocky slopes Looking back at our exit from the pass (it’s the smaller green patch on the rocks between the two more steeply cut gullies)
Up Swiss Peak
We dropped our packs and headed uphill to Swiss Peak, 7988.
1 label Looking back down at Pickell Pass
The slope was moderate snow with a bit of 2nd/3rd class rock at the top. We first arrived at a flat crest, and then scrambled a little higher to the pointy summit.
The view down in to Luna Cirque was breathtaking, literally. Approaching from the Goodell side, you scramble some moderate rocks to a level crest, step up to the edge, crane forward to look down, gasp, and quickly step backward.
Swiss Peak stands in the center of the arc of mountains surrounding Luna Cirque. Their north faces form possibly the steepest continuous wall of peaks in the Cascades. (Beckey lists the NE face of Swiss as 27 pitches, class 5.8.)
Arriving at the rim of Luna Cirque Walls of Phantom, Crooked Thumb, & Challenger Mike taking photos Summit Group Looking back toward the Spectre
To the left, gray cliff walls stretch toward Challenger. To the right, hanging glaciers grind down the sides of Fury. Straight ahead, empty space drops vertiginously to Lousy Lake down below and Luna Creek far outward.
Left: Crooked Thumb & Challenger Ahead: Lousy Lake & Luna Creek Right: Luna, Luna Lake, & East Fury
Standing On the Rim
Swiss Peak was a place where I could directly perceive that I was on a wall of mountains carved between two massive cirques. On both sides, and both ahead and behind, the crest curved outward in sharp lines of peaks outlining the adjacent cirques, Goodell behind and Luna ahead. The crest was narrow enough in some places that you could look down the line and see both front and back faces dropping away on both sides. It felt like perching right on the rim of a freshly sculpted mountain wall. Or perhaps a picket fence.
Goodell Cirque, from Fury to Spectre Luna Cirque, from Spectre to Fury Shoe shot on the rim
Summit Flowers
Amid all the bare rock and snow below, we also had the colorful treat of summit flowers, growing in little bouquets among the highest rocks just below the summit. I’d say that it was a surprise, but what’s actually surprising is how often this happens – little patches blooming among the steep rocks that had appeared to be only harsh and barren, like a welcoming smile of greeting in what had seemed an inhospitable place.
Flowers looking toward Mongo Ridge and the Southern Pickets Mossy flower patch Mike scrambling past flowers Flowers
Traveling Cirque to Cirque
Now it was time to dive down into Goodell Cirque and back up to Picket Pass.
Pickets Route & Cirques
This trip crossed or traversed a half dozen passes or cols along the way, but it wasn’t the kind of traveling through passes that I’ve usually experienced.
Most times for me, crossing a pass has meant traveling valley-to-valley, hiking up a valley to a pass, and then down a valley on the other side. But the central Pickets valleys too steep and wild for through-hiking.
Or, occasionally, I’ve traveled summit-to-summit, following a line of peaks by climbing up each summit and then traversing high around its flank to the next summit. But the most of the Pickets crest is too sharply serrated to travel directly from one summit to the next. (And, alas, we didn’t make it up to several of the summits we had intended.)
On this Pickets trip, the passes bridged the boundaries between huge cirques. So we traveled cirque-to-cirque, traversing each cirque by crossing through a pass, curving down around the headwaters the cirque’s defining stream, and then working back up to different pass on the far side.
So I didn’t experience the Pickets much from valleys below or summits above. Instead, I skirted around the flanks of the cirques, angling across passes to adjacent cirques and occasionally climbing over a col to opposite cirques.
Instead of viewing the peaks from far below and or high above, I viewed the lines of peaks curving sideways along the flanks of the cirques and fanning outward from their junctions at the passes.
It gave me a different kind of impression of the range. Not long valleys or high peaks, but giant adjacent arcs of steeply carved rock. And it’s a fitting impression, for it reflects the forces that shaped the dramatic amphitheaters of the Pickets – water and ice sculpting fiercely into the mountains to leave deep curving basins rimmed by high sharp crests of peaks.
Down to Goodell Creek
Closer to the center of the range, the dives through the cirques were deepest.
4000 feet down from Swiss to Goodell Creek, then 2400 feet back up to Picket Pass.
3 labels Pickell Pass at right, Goodell Creek center, Picket Pass at left
Most of the descent was easy on solid snow and short bits of rock.
Near the bottom was a nasty green section. The low plants were so steep and slick that all of us fell repeatedly and had to self-arrest with in the brush and dirt. For the first time ever, I donned crampons for walking on heather and grass. But then the brush got about knee high with woodier stems, so my crampons constantly caught and twisted, leaving my ankles screaming in protest. Fortunately, it only lasted a few hundred feet.
Heading toward the Southern Pickets Descending below Pickell Pass Down the steep greenery
At the bottom we traversed below Fury across a mix of talus, snow, and brush to get to the base of Picket Pass. Small waterfalls tumbled down from the rock bands above.
Below the streams of Fury Traversing the basin (our goal is the snowpatch on the far side of the rib of forest)
The Shape of Picket Pass
The Picket Pass divide actually has two passes separated by a 6900-foot high point. South of the point, the more obvious pass, looking like a giant scoop out of the ridge, is the 6230-foot Goodell-McMillan Pass. No one has bothered to abbreviate its name, because no one travels through it. It’s too cliffy. North of the point is 6420-foot Picket Pass, where Fury’s SE ridge angles down to the divide. From Picket Pass, one can reach Goodell Cirque, McMillan Cirque, or SE Fury, but not easily.
The western key to Picket Pass is a gully that ascends up toward SE Fury, allowing one to ascend most of the way past the steep rock below the pass, and then exit out and traverse a more moderate slope southward into the pass. It works if the gully is snow-filled. Otherwise the only alternative is a nasty brushy forested ridge alongside the gully.
Picket Pass & gully, 2002 view from Mystery ridge Route from Swiss to Picket Pass, July 5 photo from Tom Sjolseth
Up the Gully
So all the way down, we wondering, did the gully still have continuous snow?
We forced our way across the brushy bottom of the forested ridge to the snowy run-out at the base of gully. The gully narrowed and twisted out of sight as it climbed, becoming a cliff-walled slot, but its center was a solid path of snow. We kicked steps upward 1800 feet till we could find an exit point to climb out of the slot.
The only hazard occurred when we exited onto a steep grassy slope. The terrain above was pocked with marmot holes, and suddenly rocks came whizzing past our heads. The damned marmots were kicking rocks down on us to keep us away from their territory. We survived the marmot assault and escaped onto moderate slopes below the pass.
At the base of the gully Ascending the gully Further up the gully Looking back down the gully
Sunset at Picket Pass
We arrived at Picket Pass just as the lowering sun turned the area golden.
Picket Pass at last
Ahead of us, alpenglow lit the peaks of McMillan Cirque, where we would go tomorrow.
Alpenglow on the Southern Pickets Degenhardt Glacier & Lake 4310 Southern Pickets Sunset Panorama Last Light on the Southern Pickets
Behind us, the sun sank behind Pickell Pass, where we had been yesterday.
Pickell Pass Sunset 1 Pickell Pass Sunset 2 Pickell Pass Sunset 3
Lying on the Divide
After dark, I walked away from camp and stretched out lying on my back on a slab of rock at the center of the pass. With the day’s business done, I wanted a few quiet moments to soak up a sense of the place.
Beneath me I could feel the hard glacier-smoothed surface of the rock, holding me up and stretching far beyond my length to bridge the pass.
Above me, I could see the stars shining, and the dark silhouettes of summits hovering at the periphery of my vision.
But what surprised me was what I heard. From the basins around the pass, there was a continual rustle of water cascading downward, a familiar sound anywhere high up in these water-carved mountains. But as I let my consciousness drift, I realized I was hearing two entirely separate sets of sounds, one on each side. If I turned my head left, I could hear the streams of McMillan Cirque. If I turned my head right, I could hear the streams of Goodell Cirque. With my head centered, I could hear the voices of both basins intermingled but still distinguishable.
Lying exactly on the crest, I could actually hear the divide, singing out in two distinct melodies of cascading water, combining from both sides to present an aural manifestation of this special place.
Continued in Day 7: McMillan Cirque
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
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EastKing Surfing and Hiking
Joined: 28 Mar 2007 Posts: 2082 | TRs | Pics Location: 77 miles from Seattle! |
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EastKing
Surfing and Hiking
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 4:40 am
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YouTube | SummitPost
Saw the depths of despair. Now I am salvaging what time I have left on Earth.
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Yana Hater
Joined: 04 Jun 2004 Posts: 4212 | TRs | Pics Location: Out Hating |
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Yana
Hater
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 5:55 am
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Wow, Matt.
Sometimes I get the impression that you experience more in a day than many people do in a lifetime of being in the outdoors. *
*or maybe you just articulate it so much better
PLAY SAFE! SKI ONLY IN CLOCKWISE DIRECTION! LET'S ALL HAVE FUN TOGETHER!
PLAY SAFE! SKI ONLY IN CLOCKWISE DIRECTION! LET'S ALL HAVE FUN TOGETHER!
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Magellan Brutally Handsome
Joined: 26 Jul 2006 Posts: 13116 | TRs | Pics Location: Inexorable descent |
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Magellan
Brutally Handsome
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 8:02 am
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I love it! Thanks for sharing Matt.
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Dayhike Mike Bad MFKer
Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Posts: 10958 | TRs | Pics Location: Going to Tukwila |
Wow...the gully up to Pickett Pass is pretty impressive. Do you have any pics of the section you had to crest to reach the pass? I'm assuming you didn't break through the cliffy section at the top of this pic.
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
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seawallrunner dilettante
Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 3305 | TRs | Pics Location: Lotusland |
Matt, your trip is astounding, your photos are gorgeous - but your words, your feelings, your descriptions... pure poetry.
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GaliWalker Have camera will use
Joined: 10 Dec 2007 Posts: 4916 | TRs | Pics Location: Pittsburgh |
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GaliWalker
Have camera will use
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Sun Dec 14, 2008 10:08 am
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Matt, your trip reports take a bit of time to appear , but every one is of the highest quality. I can't think of a report you've written that has been a letdown.
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cascadetraverser Member
Joined: 16 Sep 2007 Posts: 1407 | TRs | Pics
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Looks like the snow was very helpful for you. When we did the trip in 2006 we dropped directly off the pass as discribed in R and R by Tabor and Crowder; we had checked the other route as you did and eventually went as above. It was difficult but doable; we had to rap down off the supersteep grassy section at the end; did you guys avoid that? Since the snowpack was low we figured the gully non navigable and avoided it
and went straight up the brush and crossed the slot up high. It was difficult to get across and a short stretch of difficult climbing was required to get out of the slot. We unfortunately were very tired by the time we reached the slot and ended up at an uncrossable section. We camped right before the slot and thankfully rested and crossed it the next day. Kudos to you for climbing Swiss peak before heading onto to Picket Pass. The view from it is stupendous. If you want more of the pickets (maybe you have done this trip) your picture outlines another great route: Beaver Pass up challenger arm over to Luna Lake via Lousy Lake and out via Access creek. We did it in 2007 and had a great trip until my buddy dislocated his shoulder heading down the gully to access (axes) creek. We managed to put it back in and hobbled home!
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puzzlr Mid Fork Rocks
Joined: 13 Feb 2007 Posts: 7216 | TRs | Pics Location: Stuck in the middle |
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puzzlr
Mid Fork Rocks
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Mon Dec 15, 2008 12:42 am
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Thanks for a great TR. You express yourself wonderfully. It's given me a better feeling for what to expect if I'm ever lucky enough to take a trip to that area.
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Matt Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
Joined: 30 Jan 2007 Posts: 4307 | TRs | Pics Location: Shoreline |
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Matt
Tea, Earl Grey, Hot
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Mon Dec 15, 2008 1:39 am
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Yana wrote: | Wow, Matt.
Sometimes I get the impression that you experience more in a day than many people do in a lifetime of being in the outdoors. *
*or maybe you just articulate it so much better |
Maybe I just spend a lot longer writing it. The duration of my trip reports is getting to be more epic than the trips. When I try to put it into words afterward, though, I recognize a lot that I wasn’t necessarily conscious of at the time.
Most of the time my thoughts while hiking are much more mundane, something along the line of: “Lift this foot, now lift that foot, now lift this foot, etc.” Sometimes, “where’s the helicopter, get me the hell out of here.” Sometimes, “I only took 30 photos of this spot so far, maybe another 10 would be better.” But then occasionally I pause and let myself appreciate how wonderful it is to be out there.
Dayhike Mike wrote: | Wow...the gully up to Pickett Pass is pretty impressive. Do you have any pics of the section you had to crest to reach the pass? I'm assuming you didn't break through the cliffy section at the top of this pic.
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Actually the gully angles up and left alongside the rib to bypass all of the cliffs, and brings you out on the snowfield at upper left, where you can angle back rightward to the pass. It was important to know about it ahead of time, because the gully is hidden by the angle of the slope until you get right below it. It shows well in this photo that Tom Sjolseth took from Crowder.
Route from Swiss to Picket Pass, July 5 photo from Tom Sjolseth
But this wasn’t even the most impressive gully on the trip. The gully we descended later on the other side of the pass had walls towering a hundred feet above our heads, with waterfalls free falling off the edges, and a flower garden in the middle.
cascadetraverser wrote: | Looks like the snow was very helpful for you. When we did the trip in 2006 we dropped directly off the pass as discribed in R and R by Tabor and Crowder; we had checked the other route as you did and eventually went as above. It was difficult but doable; we had to rap down off the supersteep grassy section at the end; did you guys avoid that? Since the snowpack was low we figured the gully non navigable and avoided it and went straight up the brush and crossed the slot up high.
…your picture outlines another great route: Beaver Pass up challenger arm over to Luna Lake via Lousy Lake and out via Access creek. |
One of our requirements for this trip was to have an average or better snow year, and do the trip early in the summer, so that we’d have snow to cover or fill some of the obstacles.
We didn’t rap on the steep grass, but two of us used crampons.
The northern loop you mention (Wiley Ridge, Challenger Arm, Luna Cirque, Luna Pass, Access Creek) is a great route. I did it in 1997, before I had a digital camera, so, alas, no postable photos. As you mention, Swiss gave a fine view of the route.
Luna Cirque, viewed from Swiss - a great loop comes up Wiley Ridge left of Luna Creek, traverses the cirque below, and exits by Luna on the right. 9 labels A sideways view of Luna Cirque from the NE, with Wiley Ridge in the middle distance, and the cirque wall peaks at back; Swiss is the flat summit in the center of the wall.
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
“As beacons mountains burned at evening.” J.R.R. Tolkien
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Stefan Member
Joined: 17 Dec 2001 Posts: 5082 | TRs | Pics
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Stefan
Member
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Mon Dec 15, 2008 11:58 am
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great stuff Matt. really great stuff.
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Dayhike Mike Bad MFKer
Joined: 02 Mar 2003 Posts: 10958 | TRs | Pics Location: Going to Tukwila |
Nice view from Crowder! Thanks to both Tom and Matt for that one!
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke
"Ignorance is natural. Stupidity takes commitment." -Solomon Short
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Malachai Constant Member
Joined: 13 Jan 2002 Posts: 16088 | TRs | Pics Location: Back Again Like A Bad Penny |
Thanks for holding off until now, Pickets have to be my favorite place. your pixs brighten up a cold winters day. In the summer or fall they could be lost in the shuffle.
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
"You do not laugh when you look at the mountains, or when you look at the sea." Lafcadio Hearn
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Backpacker Joe Blind Hiker
Joined: 16 Dec 2001 Posts: 23956 | TRs | Pics Location: Cle Elum |
Krazie Klimbers. Great pics Matt. Nice work you guys.
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
"If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide."
— Abraham Lincoln
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Sabahsboy Member
Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 2484 | TRs | Pics Location: SW Sno County |
Stunning photos and great TR...often poetic and deeply moving. This is the most fabulous traverse in Cascades, I am sure. None has so much drama from what I see in the photos. However, perhaps every trip has its special experience and incredible features. Thank you for sharing all that you have enclosed in this and previous threads describing the high adventure of your shared tour of The Pickets. Not just kudos, but absolutely amazing!
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