(all pictures are low res, for high res click here)
For this trip report, I highly recommend viewing the pictures in high resolution, as it is provides detail that will begin to demonstrate the immense beauty of this mountain range. This week, we decided that is was necessary to give Ruth Mountain another try since we had an unsuccessful attempt earlier in the year. Joining me on this week's climb was John, Diane and Michelle.
We knew from reading
Fred Beckey's book
Cascade Alpine Guide that this climb could be accomplished in a day, but it
promised to be a LONG day. We started the morning early by awaking at 3 am to
commence our 2.5 hour drive by 4 am. We arrived at the trailhead at 6:30 and
sorted thru our gear for the upcoming hike
, and by 7 am we were on our
way. I've been asked a bunch of gear questions (i.e. what gear do you take on
your climbs?), so here's an abridged list of gear for this trip:
3000 cu. in Gregory backpack
3 litres of water
1 Expedition weight top (Polartec 100)
2 snow picketts
1 10mm x 60m Mammut doudess dry rope
1 Black Diamond bod harness
1 ATC Belay device
1 Ushba Titanium iceaxe
1 pair Leki trekking poles
1 Pear shaped carabiner
1 Marmot Expedition shell jacket
1 pair of gloves
1 wool hat
1 pair of Charlet Moser 12 pt crampons
Sunscreen, pocketknife, map, compass and food
OK, enough of the gear talk. If you
have questions, send me email. As we began our climb, Diane was going full
force, therefore I had to beg her to stop for me to catch my breath :-),
while doing so we got to see our first glimpse of the mountain
.
Michelle and Diane kept pushing on
until we reached Hannegan Pass
.
The climb
from the pass to the next rest
point was very steep
, but the views of the mountain
were amazing.
As we continued on, we got our
first glimpse of
Mt. Shuksan
. At this point, I got a little
paranoid about drop off on both sides of the ridge, so I asked everyone to
rope up here.
(same
picture uncropped) As luck would have it, the skies cleared and the sun came
out for our summit bid, damn was it beautiful. Here's the final few steps on the
summit ridge before we reached paydirt
. Finally we reached the
summit!!!
We climbed for about 6 hours
before reaching these amazing views, here's Diane standing on one end of the
summit ridge with
Icy Peak in the background (notice how big everything is compared to her)
.
Here's a lone picture of Icy Peak as seen from the summit
.
Sitting on the summit
provided us with an opportunity
to watch the ice fall on Mt. Shuksan collapse little by little.
It was
10 times better than watching
television! Another cool thing we found on the summit was a USGS
survey marker
.
Finally, we started back to the car
(a 4 hour trek), and on the way down we could see the approach trail we took
(again, I recommend viewing this in high res to see the trail)
.
As the sun kept creeping down, the reflection off some of the prominent
waterfalls was gorgeous
. Finally, our first true summit
of the year, and frankly one of the most beautiful climbs I've ever done. Though
the climb wasn't technical, it was truly worth doing.
