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To climb Mount Challenger from Newhalem

Mid July 1976

The plan was made to take two days on the Mount Ross approach; spend the third night at Picket Pass, and the next three days in Luna Cirque. For the final three days, we planned to hike out through Ross Dam via the Luna Peak High route. To complete the loop, I recruited my parents to move John's car from Newhalem up to the Ross Dam trail head. After I made a hasty purchase of a cheap plastic ground tarp, we were ready.

John woke me Saturday morning, and then we left Goat Hill in sunny weather. The first stop came fifty miles up Interstate five at Burlington were we ate a large breakfast. The second stop was in Sedro Woolly were John bought an inexpensive watch. As we neared Marblemount, the excitement of the North Cascades increases. The view up the Cascade River toward Eldorado Peak looked delicious. At Marblemount Ranger Station, we picked up our backcountry permit, and then secured information on the Ross Dam exit. Just outside of Newhalem, we visually traced the route up Mount Ross before we drove on. We recorded the way to where we would park the car, before I called my dad to give him the information. After we asked a passing tourist for the time, we returned to the abandoned junkyard were I had parked the Pinto in 1975.

From the "parking lot", we walked around a fence and then started up the west ridge of Mount Ross. Soon after we started up the ridge, we were greeted by a small welcoming party of renegade mosquitoes. Things started to look up as we found animal trails that led up through the isolated cliffs. Instead of looping around on animal trails, we chose to climb a few of the short steps before we broke into the open forest of the upper ridge. The sun had climbed high behind a thin fail of cirrus clouds by the time we reached a deflector board. We followed a faint path up the ridge in the gathering bugs. When I showed John the water hole I had found in 1975, I notice the snow that hadn't been there the year before.

Further up the ridge, we stopped to rest on a wind blown rock. We sat in the wind to protect ourselves from the swarms of mosquitoes. However, between wind gusts we swatted the bugs off each other. Just before we reach the talus below the head wall, John spotted a deer in a vine maple thicket. We traversed below the head wall, and then followed an exposed ledge into the gully. There was some technical rock climbing on wet mossy rock were we entered the bottom of the gully. Half way up the gully, I stopped following John and moved right into a parallel gully. I was getting tired, so I slowed up and then John moved ahead. I caught up with John at the ridge crest where he was waiting. From the crest, we moved left on to the snow. After only a few steps on the snow, I felt my feet getting wet. "Let's find a flat spot to camp", I said. We chose a snow free alder thicket and then did some minor clearing before we stretched out the tarp. After John returned with water, I cooked dinner. The sunset turned into a breathtaking extravaganza of crimson shades and towering cumulus clouds. The threatening clouds were moving toward us. So, John and I snuggled into our sleeping bags and then waited for the storm to hit. The heavy rain started around midnight.

By morning the weather had turned into a foggy mist. After we ate one of John's breakfasts, we broke camp and then discovered the perforated ground tarp. We packed up and then headed north in low visibility. We traversed around the summit of Mount Ross on the highway size ledge that I had discovered the year before. The fog was pea soup thick when we gain the ridge north of Mount Ross. The plan was to follow the cornice. So, we moved north, traveling the fine line between visibility and snow collapse. We wanted to stay close enough to see the edge, but far enough away to keep from riding the cornice down the Gorge Creek side. The snow depth was much deeper than the year before. Huge snow drifts, up to twenty feet deep, rose out of the thick mist.

I knew we would have to drop down around Peak 6705 (The Roost). However, we stayed high too long and paid for it with steep down-climbing on loose wet rock. Back down on the snow, we traversed the cirque below Peak 6705 in a white out. Route finding was impossible. So, we took a mint tea break and waited for a break in the fog that never came. We traversed blindly around the cirque until I caught a glimpse of the cliffs above. I didn't like what I saw. We searched for a route to the ridge crest, until finally I started kicking steps straight up a steep snow slope. John eventually took over as we broke over the top. I tried to orient myself with the foggy view. John pulled out his compass and completely shattered my usually unflappable sense of direction. I said north was one way and the compass pointed the opposite way. I tried to take the easy way out by declaring that the compass was wrong. However, John stood firm on going back and heading north. I sat on my pack in the fog and slowly straighten out my mind. It took a while, but finally we started back along the ridge top heading north. We found and then followed some goat tracks, until I noticed a familiar landmark. The landmark was partially covered with snow. But, it was unmistakably the big flat rock I had rested on the year before. Now I felt confident that we were on the route as we traversed north on the snow. Still traveling in the thick fog, we crossed more snow and then a few moves on wet rock. Then it was back to following the dreaded cornice.

As he frequently looked at his compass, John would occasionally report that we were not going north. I concluded that we had to compensate for the magnetic deviation. I kept looking for the pass I had camped at in 1975. But, we only found two huge cornice drop offs that forced us to the left. Finally John reported, "You are heading south again."
"I give up. Lets camp here. When the sun sets the weather will clear." I said.
John went for water as I started digging a flat spot in the snow. I scooped-up balls of snow with a Tupperware bowl and then we used the snow balls to make walls. The shelter turned out to be very nice after setting the tarp over the top. As the sunset the fog rose slightly. I took a bearing on Pinnacle Peak before the fog settled back in. We used the bearing and the map to figure out our position. It felt good to get out of my boots, for they had been wet all day. I pour the water out of my boots and then rung out my socks. We ate beef stroganoff by candlelight before we went to sleep.

We slept in until some light filtered through the thick mist. John cooked one of his quick breakfasts. After eating, we packed and then returned to blindly following the cornice north in the fog. We found the pass, even though it was disguise by the huge snow pack. After finding my old camp site, We climbed Peak 7200+ (Glee Peak) by groping up through the fog. On the summit, the wind was driving the mist horizontally. So, we sat in the lee of the summit rocks and ate granola bars. There was no view from the top of Peak 7200+.

The descent was made via the northeast ridge, and from there, we drop down on to the snow. As we climbed up around a rock buttress, the wind increased with the altitude. We climbed up rock and heather clumps to the leeward side of the ridge. When we reached a rock wall, John jumped the moat and then stood on top of a massive detached block of snow. I thought it looked like a serac and then I decided, "This is not the way. Let's go back around". We climbed back down to the snow, and then passed around another rock buttress. The sun almost burnt through the fog as we neared the cornice. I could not see it, but I knew the cornice was there. I could feel the danger on the back of my neck. Because the ridge top was flat, I didn't see the cornice until I was on the brink. I gasped to see over 2,000 feet below, and almost straight down, snow covered Azure Lake. I jumped back against a short gust of wind driven rain. We followed the cornice, at a respectable distance, down toward the pass. We passed what I thought was the pass until we passed another pass. When we pass the third pass, the weather had increased to a heavy wind driven rain. I pulled my arm up into the sleeve of my Anorak as we climbed the snow slope north of the pass. It seemed like a long trudge in the low visibility as we climbed up snow, and then rock, and then more snow. In a great stroke of good luck, the clouds broke momentarily and then showed us the way to "the gate" that led to the McMillan Spires bivouac ledge. We made a B-line for "the gate" by traversing a steep snow slope before we could pass through the notch and step out of the wind.

We sat down on the snow cover ledge and then boiled water for hot soup and sweet mint tea. After we drank the warming fluid, John chopped his way up a moat to the ridge top. The black summits of the Terror Group held the clouds back like a big picket fence, and thus revealing the rugged terrain of McMillan Cirque. Instead of testing the questionable cornice that hung from the east ridge of McMillan Spires, we drop down to the small evergreens and ledges of heather on the Azure Lake side of the ridge. On the traverse to Azure Pass, there was an unusual amount of scrambling on tree holds, and tedious exposed free climbing. John and I agreed that the Chimney Rock climb was good conditioning for the exposure we found east of McMillan Spires. We turned off the ridge just before reaching Azure Pass, and then descended the steep snow with a combination of control plunges and wild speed greedy sliding. As we quickly moved through a few small crevasses, the sun dropped behind Picket Pass.

We traversed down past some well packed avalanche tracks, and then it was time to rope up and respect the big crevasses. We jumped one small crevasse and then looped around a large crevasse before we unroped. After the rope was stowed, we crossed another avalanche track and then entered an area of fresh rock fall. Many yards of dark rock had recently fallen off the north buttress of east McMillan Spire. The landslide left a giant, light colored, fresh rock scar on the north face of the spire. We crossed over a raging torrent on the bridge of hard snow, and then continued down on ice polished rock. We searched for the key ledge described in the Tabor-Crowder guide. We used the crab walk to scramble down the polished slabs. The decision on, "Which ledge do we take?" was expedited due to the impending darkness. While we hurried down in the failing light, I lost my footing and then my feet flew out from under me. I slowly pick myself up from the wet before we continue down into the darkness. By the time I discovered we had picked the wrong ledge, it was too dark to go back up and around. So, we rigged a repel and then repelled off with our headlamps glowing. After we reached the snow, I pulled the rope thorough and brought down a shower of rocks. Luckily we both walked away unhurt, and then headed down in search of a campsite. We followed the light from headlamps, down an ice block strewn avalanche fan. I tried to fight off the ominous presents of the ice that I knew hung above us. But, my senses were still very tense as we picked our way down through the fresh blocks of ice. We passed between some slide alder and then picked a campsite below a large alder patch. It took some digging to level the snow and a couple of sturdy alder poles to make camp. After dinner, I wrung out my sopping socks and then crawled into my wet sleeping bag. The camp was loud with the multi tone roar of cascading water. But, I was way too exhausted to keep from sleeping. However, with a gesture of local supremacy, the mischievous McMillan Cirque sat me up straight with a thundering echo of falling ice.

The morning dawned bright and sunny. So, we threw back the dew covered tarp and then had a lengthy drying out session. We made a route change decision over breakfast. The new plan was to forgo the climb to Picket Pass, and instead follow the more direct route to Luna Cirque. After we packed, we went down the valley to check out the small cirque to the north. From a distance, we picked a route up the nearside wooded ridge. But, after we had a short spat with some brush, and got a closer look, we discovered a convenient snow gully that led up into the cirque. The snow filled slot opened up into a large snow covered cirque. As we hiked across the floor of the cirque, there was some ice fall from the glacier that hung on the side of Peak 7360+. We decided to call the cirque Pansy Cirque in contrast with Mount Fury and Mount Terror.

When we reach the spectacular water fall that dropped over the head wall, a short sprinkle of rain prompted a rest stop. By the time we had pulled out our rain gear, the rain had stopped. Our route went up to the right of the falls; climbing through small trees and up steep rock. We had to move left to pass a section of wet rock before we broke out onto the upper slopes. As we climbed a B-line up the snow, the sun and cloud shadows drift their checkerboard pattern across the Southern Picket Range. As the day wore on, my steps became smaller. John and I exchanged the lead in the softening snow. We finally reach the ridge line nearly 4,000 feet above our McMillan Cirque camp. After climbing 500 more feet, we reached the top of Peak 7280+ and then took in our first view of Luna Cirque. I felt enchanted to think that it had only been 40 years before, that Bill Cox and Will F Thompson recorded the first visit to this area. Some wispy clouds hung on the summit of Mount Challenger; adding to the mystique of our intended goal. John and I dropped down to the plateau that sat on the west side of Peak 7360+. We picked a tarp spot on the Crescent Ridge between Mount Fury and Luna Peak, and then set the tarp using a four foot cairn that we built. The sunset over the Black Tusk as the evening meal was prepared. Soon after sunset the clouds disappeared and then revealed the moonlit peaks of both McMillan and Luna Cirques. We decided to climb Luna Peak tomorrow. During the night, a sometimes gusty wind, snapped me awake with the thought of the teetering rock pile above my head.

It was a cloudless Sunday morning. So, we had another drying out session. John and I smeared on a heavy coat of Pre-Sun before we broke camp. We shouldered our packs and then scramble down to the pass that sat just west of camp. When we passed through a shadowed area beneath Peak 7308, I briefly reconsidered the decision not to bring crampons on this trip. I carefully edged out across the hard slick snow. We both safely crossed the dangerous snow slope and then easily reached the top of Peak 7308 by following a wide spiral ledge. On the descent to Luna Pass we were blocked by a short cliff, so we resorted to rappelling. The rappel was tricky due to the vertical take off lip. We traversed snow across the pass, and then spread out our wet gear on a sunlit rock just north of Luna Pass. We left our gear on the "Dry-out" rock, and then headed for the summit of Luna Peak. Our route started up the west ridge. But we were forced right and then scrambled up the huge detached boulders on the south side. We huffed and puffed to the top of Luna Peak over broken rock. The best views were from the false summit (West Point). But we still traversed the summit ridge to attain the highest ground. Back on the West Point, we stayed awhile. I took some pictures. What a wondrous position we had obtained. A continuous panorama of the whole Picket Range was displayed before us.

04 044 Crescent Ck Spires Mt Despair Pansy Pk (232k)

The pointed crests of the Crescent Creek Spires pierce the clear morning sky. The Rake (The Blob), The Twin Needles, Himmelhorn, Ottohorn and The Frenzel Spitz stand above the hanging ice of the Mustard Glacier. To the right is the Southeast Peak of Mount Fury (aka Outrigger Pk). Between is the gap of Picket Pass with the double summits of Mt Despair in the distance. Picket Range; North Cascades National Park. July 76

04 046 Crooked Thumb Mt Challenger Luna Cirque Gl (234k)

The dark walls of the Northern Picket Range rise abruptly above the hanging ice of the Luna Cirque Glacier. To the right is the broad summit of Mt Challenger with its ice sheet blanketing Challenger Arm. Left center is Crooked Thumb Pk and Phantom Pk further left. The first known explorations of the Luna Creek headwaters occurred in the summer of 1937 by Bill Cox and Will F Thompson. North Cascades National Park.

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