Back a number of years ago now when Goran lived in Seattle, we romped around the Cascades together, experiencing many of the classic climbs. Since his move to CA and addition of two kids to the picture, we hadn’t climbed much together and so we were both excited for his trip up to Seattle this summer. Having only made it to the rock gym a handful of times since things started to open back up from COVID, neither of us was ready to charge at hard alpine trad. We nearly settled on the Ptarmigan Traverse until we realized the roads were out on both ends and getting a car shuttle would be a monumental favor to ask.
So we decided on Challenger. It had sat on my list for a long time, waiting for a long weekend or more time. Our planning and decision fatigue led to relatively little beta gathering before we departed, mainly relying on Nelson and Potterfield as well as Kearney.
A leisurely start on Saturday had us departing the car at roughly noon. We expected to ascend Easy Ridge and camp somewhere short of Perfect Pass unless we could make it there before dark. Hannegan Pass was quick. The 2,500 foot descent on the other side was quick—perhaps too quick as each of us felt some hot spots by the end of it. Nelson and Potterfield’s description said to look for a faint trail after crossing the river, so we went all the way to the cable car crossing, thoroughly enjoying a romantic dangle across the river in a car built for two, and having lunch with our feet in the stream on the East side of the creek. We did not find a faint trail. We went all the way up to the north toe of Easy Ridge, then back to the cable car. The closest thing we could find was a dry stream bed / avalanche chute which we tried heading up and found nothing at the top of after ascending a couple hundred feet. Oh well, we decided to re-route via Whatcom Pass. [Note: our failure to save a GPS track was our own damn fault; turns out the stream crossing and trail are WELL in advance of the main trail’s crossing]. It took us another 2 hours from the junction near the North toe of Easy Ridge to camp at Whatcom Pass around 9pm.
Our time estimates for summit day varied widely, but we had faith we could do it in less than 14 hours, so we rested up as much as we could and left camp at 7am. I’d picked up my first cold in 16 months since the pandemic started and did my best impression of a wounded goose for much of the night, so an extra hour or two in the morning really helped. The trail from Whatcom Pass toward Whatcom Peak became pretty faint in places, but it seemed a network of faint climber’s trails wove around the same elevation bands to get us where we needed to go.
Our first view of the glacier showed a pretty straightforward passage around the mountain and going over the North Ridge looked quite involved, so we opted for the traverse. We got as low as 5,300 feet as we went around and then did a long, ascending traverse toward Perfect Pass. A party of two was a couple hours ahead of us starting from Perfect Pass and gave us a good target to follow. It took 3 hours to get from Whatcom Pass to Perfect Pass moving at a pretty decent clip. From here, the route looked very straightforward and we benefitted from the existing boot pack. The bergshcrund didn’t pose a problem and we sauntered up the snow arete to the summit rocks just after noon, which meant the entire glacier route had taken 2 hours.
The other party was rappelling as we were getting ready to climb the 5th class step. We said our hellos and then I set off, clipping the pins and a fixed cam and enjoying a couple of low-5th moves along the way. We’d brought a couple of nuts and cams just in case, but didn’t need them. Goran even pointed out a 4th pin I didn’t see. From the anchor, it was a quick scramble to the true summit just before 1pm—a phenomenal perch with views of Fury and Luna nearby as well as Baker and Shuksan to the West and Redoubt and Spickard to the North. We soaked it in for a few minutes and then descended with a short rap that was perfect with a 30m rope. Including a lunch break, we were back at Perfect Pass by 3:30pm.
The traverse back around Whatcom Peak was tedious, made slightly better by being able to boot ski and side slip down snow patches. Goran remarked that this day involved the most crampon transitions he’d ever experienced as we wove from snow patch to snow patch, not including these sections we boot skied without the sharps on. We rolled back into camp at about 6:15pm for 11 hours on the day. This gave us ample time to have a pre-dinner snack, then a 2-hour nap, then proper dinner and tea at 9pm with twilight. Not so bad.
Our hike out on Monday was long. We weren’t in a big rush and caught some extra z’s, leaving Whatcom Pass camp at 10:15am. We dunked our feet in the cool streams a few times along the way and had a similarly romantic cable car ride on the way out. The hike was otherwise unremarkable. Coming down from Hannegan Pass, my knees and feet were starting to get pretty achey and some blisters were getting raw on my heels, so I stopped for a snack of Ibuprofen and sour gummy bears. As I was getting marauded by flies, I decided time was of the essence and shoved the vitamin-I in with my mouth full of gummies. As the pills crushed between my molars, I laughed to myself as I realized I was actively rubbing drugs into my gums. Turns out it was quite effective and my pace increased for the remaining miles.
We finished up at the car at about 5:30pm, making it 7.5 hours on the day with some leisurely breaks and foot maintenance. This route is less of a climbing objective and more of a backcountry odyssey. In the right mindset, it’s an adventure one should experience. I’d advise looking up the Easy Ridge GPS track to shave off some miles. Approach shoes with aluminum crampons and ultralight axes worked great for this.
