[dicey]

The plan: Ross Lake to Beaver Pass to Eiley-Wiley Ridge. Climb Challenger. Traverse Challenger glacier to Perfect Pass, Easy ridge to Hannegan. The terrain: Deep in the heart of the North Cascades lies the Picket Range. One of the most rugged and remote mountain ranges in the lower 48. (insert dramatic music here) The players: Myself, Katie, Laurie and Doxey Setting up the travel logistics was the first obstacle to be confronted. We were able to arrange to be dropped off at Ross Lake resort (thank you Jill!!) and also managed to have a car waiting for us at Hannegan (thank you Chad!!). Whew! Side note here: Although their website suggests otherwise, the water taxi service to big beaver trailhead is now $30. Day 1 We were unable to secure a reservation for Luna camp, which meant our first day would be 15 miles of travel with heavy packs to Beaver pass! Yuckie! The trail to luna camp is relatively flat through the big beaver valley bottom, gradually gaining some elevation towards luna camp. This turned out to be harder than expected due to enormous packs. We were also threatened by a pissed off grouse that charged us, hissing We ended up camping at Luna camp afterall, since a thunderstorm hit right when we got there. As it turned out, we ran into a couple of guys the next day who had camped at beaver pass instead of luna to escape the storm. We had swapped campsites! Fair enough. Day 2 Luna camp to beaver pass. This stretch was very wet and brushy. We were soaked by the time we arrived at beaver pass. From here, we took off through some horribly dense brush heading for the timbered slope directly behind the shelter at beaver pass, and began what was to become a 4.5 hour bushwhack straight uphill for 2,000ft. We finally gained the ridge and found a nice campsite with views of luna and the northern pickets. Day 3 Began with steep heather traverses, then up giant boulder fields to eiley lake, which is completely frozen. From here, we continued on up to wiley lake and up the steep slope above it. Challenger comes into view. Traverse to a notch, then downclimb a steep dirty gully, then up to challenger vista camp, the best campsite I have ever been to. From the top of challenger vista one is afforded uninterrupted 360 views in all directions. Too many peaks to name, utterly gorgeous!! Between the long drawn out sunset and the full moon, it never really got dark this night. Day 4 Challenger climb. Made it heartbreakingly close to the summit tower, but couldn't find a way to traverse over to the base of the darn thing! Descended into a white out which followed us down the mountain where we had left our packs. Traversed the glacier towards perfect pass, avoiding most of the crevasses by staying high. The route to perfect pass traverses a very steep section of glacier with cliffs below and quite a bit of slab scrambling to reach the ridge above the pass. We ran into 3 guys at perfect pass who had come from easy ridge. We gleaned as much info as we could about crossing the impasse, our objective for the following day. Day 5 Slept in! Yay! Got moving around noon, and began our descent from perfect pass. It's difficult to describe the impasse itself, other than to say it is a huge gorge separating perfect pass from easy ridge, and is very problematic due to the surrounding terrain. Steep, rugged, cliffy terrain dotted with patches of impenetrable brush was our fare for the day. We Descended about 2k, then began working our way back up, searching for a crossing, finding rappel slings in unlikely looking places all day! After searching for hours high and low, we finally found a steep downclimb to cross and then scrambled up a gully full of large, loose boulders to the other side. We made it! Yay! It was 9pm, so we camped right there on the rocks. This was the most emotionally and physically exhausting day of the trip, but we are now all very familiar with this area! Day 6 The day began with a low fog that never seemed to burn off. We worked our way steeply up through boulder fields, brush, slabs and finally snow slopes to the crest of easy ridge. From here, we were able to follow a boot path where it wasn't covered in snow all the way to near the end of the ridge, and the trail heading down towards the chilliwack river below. It's really a shame that we didn't have views along the ridge since it is spectacularly beautiful, dotted with tarns and rock slabs. The trail leading down to the chilliwack river is pretty terrible, overgrown with brush and blowdowns to be climbed over, under, around and through; pretty tedious stuff for weary climbers. We looked for a crossing for about 10 minutes, then we just put on our gaitors and walked across in our boots. They couldn't get any wetter than they already were. The rain had started by this point, and would be our companion for the remainder of our journey. In a couple of miles we reached copper creek camp, our camp for the night. Day 7 Rain. Wet tents. Wet clothes. Wet everything. Yuck! We marched up towards hannegan pass, then down the other side, not stopping to climb Ruth. We couldn't even see it, anyway. Would the car be there, waiting for us in the parking lot when we arrived? Yes! It was! We had successfully completed the traverse! One last crux - get to Milano's before they close. That part was in the bag since we got to the car at 2pm. MMMmilano's in Glacier. The perfect ending to an awesome week. Although this trip started and ended in the rain, we sure had some great weather and spectacular views along the way, and most importantly, we all had a great time together through some pretty intense days. This trip earns a spot in the top 3 hardest trips I have ever done, but those are the ones that you remember the most for some reason. Cheers! Some pics:

Mt. Challenger

Luna Cirque

Shuksan and Baker

Luna Peak

[Dayhike Mike]

Wet, cliffy, and treacherous. Sounds like a great time! Thanks for the TR and pics!

[jenjen]

Hot Damn, Woman! What a great report.

[Jeff R]

Pretty intense trip/ pics ya did there!

[Guiran]

Sounds like a great trip. Hear any voices?

[Backpacker Joe]

Impressive

[dicey]

[mike]

Wow! Luna looks pretty impressive from that side. Nice pic

[Tazz]

I knew you where up to something big cause I hadn't seen any TR from you in a week or so. So I had been waiting.....and here it is. WOW what an amazing trip! Great job you guys!!

[#19]

Beauty! Day 5 sounded extremely intense. Bummer about Challenger, but I'm sure you are already planning your next trip back.

[Don]

Great trip into a superbly scenic area! The views along Easy Ridge are quite nice, but you came away without being cheated from the best - the views from camp below Challenger. I suspect you will cherrish the memories for a long, long time! Good job!

[Malachai Constant]

My favorite place in the range , still looking for a good way cross the impasse, Tyrolean Traverse?, Tram?, Telelegaphique?, Jet Pack?. It is sad that Challenger Glacier is so broken up this early. It used to be easy squeeze with a shrund at the very end. A great epic nonetheless. The journey is more important than the goal

[mpaul_hansen]

Alternative to Impasse and Easy Ridge A note: the "impasse" can be avoided altogether by skirting around the other side of Whatcom Peak..... but requires a longer slog than the Easy Ridge route.

[dicey]

Thanks ya'll This trip was cooked up a year or so ago by dkemp, and really was a great and memorable one for sure. As far as going back, I would love to go back to easy ridge to get those views we missed - maybe in the fall when the bugs are gone. Challenger - I might need to give it a year or so for memory fading purposes, if you know what I mean! mpaul, we were aware of the whatcom bypass, but wanted to try the impasse just to get it 'figured out', since it turns so many groups around, kind of a challenge (pun intended). MC - we were thinking that maybe a trampoline to overcome the impasse BTW, here is a pic of the impasse close to where we were able to get across.

[Randy]

Nice work Dicey!