My colleagues and I had no trouble navigating
the Sulphide Glacier and reaching the base of
Shuksan's summit pyramid on July 2, 2004.
But the pyramid itself left us scratching our
heads. The central gully was partially melted
out, so some rather serious rockclimbing was
required, but we'd brought no rockclimbing
protection. Additionally, we couldn't manage to
shake two very slow climbers who shuffled
past us low in the gully and proceeded to
climb at a snail's pace upwards. So we
shrugged, snapped a few photos 200 or 300
feet from the top, including this one, and
headed back down to the safety of the
Sulphide Glacier.