I watched the weather forecast all week for the Cascades and the Alpine Lakes Wilderness and they slowly improved day by day. So, maybe we’d get another nice weekend of climbing in! Of the two climbs we’d picked, Michael convinced me to do the North Ridge of Stuart. I was really looking forward to that when I got another call from Michael on Friday night and he told me that access to Stuart was closed due to fires. So, to the Pickets it was! Either way, we were going to be happy. We left at around 6:45 AM for the Pickets. It was quite dank and cloudy on the drive there however by the time we were within 5 miles of the trailhead, the clouds vanished revealing blue sky! Ken and I had tried to force our way up the Goodell Creek trail the year before in hard rain and thick brush. We wisely had given up after maybe two and a half miles. It was reassuring to see clear weather. I was anticipating brush again on the lower part of the trail but it was much clearer than last year…or did the lack of rain just make it seem more clear?
The Goodell Creek trail is indeed a good one. We had to backtrack a bit to find the branch that turned east and up to Terror Basin. This trail, as one would expect, is nonstop steep and long. After some minutes, views began to manifest beyond the trees. We could see Mount Triumph’s summit appearing over the ridge across the valley. One distinguishing feature on the climb up is a section of “riblets” as we dubbed them – small ridges running horizontally across the slopes. The trail passes over at least three of these. Beyond that we got some of our first views of the Southern Pickets. The Chopping Block came into view first and the rest of the main crest later. The trail became brushier above but always manageable and not disagreeable. We lost the trail a couple of times but always backtracked maybe 15 or 20 feet to find the real one. After crossing under some cliffs, the trail turned hard right and began steeply climbing gullies in between the cliffs. The roots formed nice hand rails for pulling ourselves up. At the top of these steep slopes, the trail became less steep and the trees a little more sporadic. We chose to take a rest stop here. From our rest stop we pondered where the trail went. I guessed that it would remain fairly low. It didn’t; the trail leads to a very high notch (visible in the extreme right of the second picture below).
The trail becomes very inspiring here. The views are incredible and the terrain is distinctly sub alpine. The trail is faint in places but always near. We never truly lost a trail. At one point, we came to a steep descent into a creek bed, followed a trail to a dead end, retreated, climbed up the creek bed to where a trail led us northward. We broke out of the trees into scenic heather and huckleberry bushes. Looking back on the lower valleys, we could see thick clouds settled in the valleys. It probably seemed a dreary day to the lowlanders.
Michael unfortunately had long since run out of water and there was virtually none on the steep climb up to Terror Basin. I had drank full bottle at the car and had a little left which I shared (I didn’t really need it). He visibly slowed down but was able to at least quench his thirst by sucking on a trickle of water over a granite slab. Higher up, we realized that we were indeed heading for the high notch. The sun was quite intense this afternoon; hard to believe it was October. We took another rest at the notch. There was plenty of water cascading down in the basin where we’d camp. The basin though looks really industrial – much dust, rocks, and gravel strewn about.
The descent into the basin is very steep and loose. We found it pretty easy though by hugging the wall on the right side, then following the water along solid talus down to camp. At camp, we threw down our packs and rested a bit. As if I didn’t have enough punishment already, I decided to scout around camp. I had wanted to get a good look at Azure Lake and some of the points along the ridge looked pretty accessible, so I headed of for them solo. I made a point to scout the route along the way, checking for potential pitfalls for the climb tomorrow. The climb up to the Azure Lake overlook was longer than I thought. It was cool looking down to this remote lake though. There is a beautiful waterfall cascading off the vertical north walls.
I hung around on top for a while with new views of the peaks to the east, Jack Mountain and Ruby Mountain, to name a couple. I couldn’t see any of the other remote Picket Peaks like Fury and Luna from here. I started running the ridge back to camp, looking for better angles for photographing the waterfall. After a couple of more points along the ridge, I made a bee line down glacier slabs back to camp. Michael was hanging out reading on top of a talus pile with good views towards Triumph and Despair. We cooked dinner and went to bed.
We (or rather I) awoke rather late and after a short breakfast were off (7:25). This day was the questionable weather day but it was another cloudless one. There were, again, low clouds in the valley. The clouds crept up pretty far into Goodell Creek valley. We quickly followed a route that I had spied the day before and were soon at a steep creek gully fed by an ice-filled lake in a depression at the low point of the ridge leading to the Southern Picket Peaks. We took a short break here where I drank a lot of water. My plan was to not carry any water on the entire climb but instead bring a cup and drink at every water source that I came to.
We climbed comfortable glacier slabs up to the base of the snow below West McMillan Spire and there donned our crampons. I drank a whole lot of water as well since I would have no more until our descent. I enjoyed this tactic actually. Not carrying any water forced me to really take the opportunity to drink a lot when I had the opportunity, so I stayed well hydrated. The climb up the glacier is easy below the peak. We had no rope and did not have to fool with any crevasse crossings. The Terror Glacier proper to the north is severely broken, however. The last bit of snow that gains the gully is fairly steep, but the snow was hard and our crampons bit well. The rest of the climb was straightforward enough – mostly class 3 scrambling on what I would consider quite solid ground (the gully was definitely loose of course). Views of Mounts Terror and Fury slowly came into view.
Near the top, the route becomes thinner but the exposure was never truly scary or even intimidating; there is plenty of room for scampering along the ridge crest. We took another well deserved break on the summit to finish of most of our food and take in the grandiose surroundings. We’d arrived in just over three hours. There was a summit register (surprising) and we found Colin’s name written during his first attempt at the Picket enchainment.
I wasn’t ready to leave this summit at all. If we had an extra day, I probably would have spent at least four hours on top! We needed to head down though if we were going to make it out before dark.
The descent was quite straightforward. I did take a little more time than I should have by snapping more pictures on the way down.
We made good time once we got back on the snow. We actually ended up descending further than we need to into Terror Basin. We got separated by a little miscommunication but were able to figure out what had happened. We were back on route back to camp. Back at camp, we collapsed on to our sleeping bags. I pulled mine into the shade – the sun had been beating down on me long enough. The plan was to take a 17 minute nap and be hiking by 2:45. At a fast pace, we could probably be back at the car by dark. That was a nice 17 minutes.
I’ll spare the details of the descent. It was pleasant enough at first but the fatigue slowly kicked in and the descent back to Goodell Creek was a long one. We hiked the straightaway at top speed and arrived back at car just as it was getting too dark to see. Totaled up, this trip was 20 miles and 13,500 feet of elevation! That’s by far the most I’ve done in a single weekend. What a great and painful initiation to the Pickets!
