| Shuksan Sulphide/SE rib Variation Trip Report |
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| Shuksan Sulphide/SE rib Variation   | 
| Page Type: Trip Report Location: Washington, United States, North America Date Climbed/Hiked: Jul 1, 2009 Activities: Mountaineering Season: Summer | Page By: tazz Created/Edited: Jul 11, 2009 / Jul 11, 2009 Object ID: 528583 Hits: 421 Loading... Page Score: 88.46% - 12 Votes Loading... Vote: Log in to vote |
I love alpine rock! The things I like about alpine rock. Its not snow! The slower pace and pure enjoyment. The communication between partners. The exposure! The smell of the rope when repelling. (Yeah I know I am weird) listening to gear clang around as your working your way up. The concentration and focus it takes. I could go on but won’t torture you all.
Geoff Fowler and I got together for a very fun climb of Shuksan. A few weeks ago he mentions Shuksan in an e-mail and I jumped all over it. I have never wanted to do the steep gully snow slog. Its enough of a snow slog on the Sulphide that I wanted to try out the SE rib route. Most of the route is exposed class 4 and can be simu climbed, but I wanted to work on my rope and multi pitch skills ( I am hoping to tag more alpine rock summits this year.) Plus the thought of pitching off without a belay just didn’t thrill me.
The approach was easy and we found the only melted out camp on the sulphide. Two other parties came up behind us. Good folks. One party chose to take a corner of our dry camp. great folks to chat a bit with.
We left camp along with the only other 2 parties on the peak. The other 2 parties took the gully. One of the parties of 3 we camped with. They are good folks so I took some shots of them and figured we would send it via e-mail. I love meeting other climbers out there! Climbers rock!
We mounted the rib just above the first large notch. That was the hardest move of the entire climb. Low class 5. The rock is really good, I was surprised how good it was.
Several pitches later and tons of fun we are on the summit. I have no words to describe how happy I was feeling. It has been a dream and a lot of hard work (plus injuries and life setbacks)getting into Alpine rock and now I am HOOKED!!!! Pickets here I come!!
A few rappels and we were off. There are at least 3-4 rap stations through the gully The third rap station cannot be reached so one must scramble down to it on exposed class 3. All Have solid, good webbing.
We wrapped up a perfect trip with the long slog across The sulphide. Bridges are thin and I was able to easily tap them and it just collapsed. All can be skirted around VERY easy but figured I would let ya all know its that time of year
Its great when all falls into place a trip works so well. I want to thank Geoff for being a great partner and leading the rib. Thanks for a great trip!!!gear and conditionsa small set of nuts. Slings for the many horns you can choose from.
we used a alpine twin 30 m rope.
ice axe and crampons
Snow level was at 4800' but melting out fast
the gully is fugly!! it is melting out in the middle.
sulphide is opening up. Thin bridges. Images
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Mt. Baker Scenic Byway > Mount Shuksan > Shuksan Sulphide/SE rib Variation
