West Mcmillan spire

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West McMillan Spire

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West Mcmillan spire

Page Type: Trip Report

Location: Washington, United States, North America

Lat/Lon: 48.77300°N / 121.2788°W

Date Climbed/Hiked: Aug 5, 2005

Page By: tazz

Created/Edited: Aug 15, 2005 / May 18, 2006

Object ID: 170338

Hits: 850

Page Score: 78.84% - 5 Votes

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This is my first time climbing in the Pickets and my first trip report on SP.
Dicey and I decided to make a three day trip out of it. Well worth the extra time. We started out at 600' on the old logging road that runs up Goodell creak. The climbers path runs about 3.5 - 4 miles up the creek only gaining about 1000'. There is a camp spot with a fire ring to the right. This is where the trail turns to the right and accends a ridge for about 1.5 miles for a gain of 3500'. Around 5000' the trail mellows a bit and starts to traverse to the NW. You cross one streem bed and then around 5200' you come to a second stream bed. Climb up the stream bed for about 100' and there will be a cairne. Here is where the traverse starts and the views too. Following the many choices of paths you go through meadows and slab to a saddle at 6200' to the right of a notch. This is where we decided to stop and look for a spot to camp. Our permit was for Terror basin but descending from the saddle down to the basin was not what we wanted to do with full packs. The descent is down a very steep slope of dirt,scree,and loose rock. We found a good camp spot up on the ridge to the right of the saddle. The views from camp are awsome.

Helmets on we started down the saddle the next morning.
From 6200' drop down to the right and skirt the cliff wall. We stayed close together because the rock fall was pretty bad. Every step was loose rock dirt and scree. Once off the slope descend down the glacier fed stream that runs into Terror basin. This will get you down to 5800' and in the camp area.
We met a nice guy doing some backpacking.
We then climbed up nice slab to a saddle at 6200' to look down on Azure Lake.

From 6200' at the saddle we descended south west across slab and rock to 5500'. This is where you cross an out flow from a lake that once was a glacier.(no name on map). From here traverse around some slab and NW and start scrambling up the slab toward the glacier.

We started up the glacier skirting around some very tiny crevasses. Then it starts to get steep about 40 degrees. The route runs up into a gully of nasty scree,dirt, and loose rock. Alot of rock fall litters the glaciers here. Luckily there was still enough snow in the gully to cover the loose crap. The snow finger was in pretty good shape till up at the end where it gets very thin with some bridges about to let go. Luckily we are two light wieght girls. When we stopped to take our crampons off the upper part of the snow finger collapsed next to us. From here we climbed upthe west summit ridge, a mix of nasty loose scree and dirt to some good rock. You reach a small false summit before a short scramble along a small section of ridge to the summit block at 8000'.
The views are amazing. The northern pickets, Baker, shuksan and on and on.........

Our decent down the snow finger was a little mushy but we made it with out any of it collapsing under us. We camped one more night and headed out the next day. It was worth taking the 3 days because it is so beautiful there.

STATS:
20 miles RT
13,500' acc total elev.

Gear used:
ice axe
crampons (didn't really need them)
helmet
I also wrote a TR on here

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Viewing: 1-7 of 7

Dean

Worth mentioning

Voted 7/10

To anyone reading this TR, be sure and go to the TR linked at the bottom of Tazz's report. It is a ten and the pics presented there are outstanding. The one stat that really catches my eye is the 13,500 feet of elevation. That is quite a workout.

Posted Feb 17, 2006 3:13 pm


	tazz	Re: Worth mentioning
	Hasn't voted	Thanks Dean, I didn't believe it myself. But when I looked it up on Theron's, erics' base camp, or mountain works (not sure wich one, I used all for beta) site yup there it was over 13,300 gain. I can't believe some do that trip in one day. It was so beautiful there is is hard to go that fast and take it all in. I am glad we took 3 days. It is a trip I will never forget. Dicey and I call it a big girls climb LOL.
		Posted Feb 18, 2006 4:02 am

MountaingirlBC

Wow... awesome trip!

Hasn't voted

Just finished reading your tr and enjoying your photos. That's an area I'm hoping to get into this summer. Nice one!

Posted May 13, 2006 12:46 am


	tazz	Re: Wow... awesome trip!
	Hasn't voted	Thanks, yes it was one of the best I have been on. Fun and beautiful...a must do! I am now addicted to the Pickets. I am looking to do Luna maybe this year would you be interested if I can work it out? BTW I enjoy your site and trip reports.
		Posted May 18, 2006 9:48 pm

MountaingirlBC

absolutely!

Hasn't voted

I've been reading ur tr's too and you sound like a super cool chick. Would love to play with you. Have your people call my people!

Posted May 19, 2006 3:35 am

mvs

the elev. statistic is crazy isn't it?

Voted 10/10

Hi, MVS from the mountainwerks.org site here, I see your comments about the elevation gain. Note that this number includes Theron's hike up to look down on the lake, then come back to camp for the night. It's actually a bit less (700 feet?). I wisely avoided that thigh burning move and read peacefully in camp :-D. Great TR, it is a wonderful way to see the Pickets.

Posted May 19, 2006 9:45 am


	tazz	Re: the elev. statistic is crazy isn't it?
	Hasn't voted	Yes it is crazy! My altimeter read acc. gain at 13,4.....(?)something. We went up to look over at the lake too but then continued from there to the summit. I rounded it up to 13,500 cause I was lazy LOL. I had just picked up my altimeter and this was its second trip. When i saw it said 13,000+ I was shocked and wasn't sure it was right. Then I saw Theron's report and it varified it for me. One heck of a climb and sooooooo fun! :)
		Posted May 25, 2006 10:33 pm

Viewing: 1-7 of 7