Mt Challenger/Challenger Gl

Date: 6/30/2006 - 7/3/2006
Route: Hannegan Pass/Easy Ridge/Perfect Pass
Difficulty: Grade III-IV approach Grade II/5.7+ rock
Climbers: Jeff Street, John Dorgan, Chris Kirsten, Jeff Tostenrude



Day 1 - 8 hours

On Friday we all gathered at Ash Way P&R to set off on our journey to do Mt Challenger in the remote Picket range. Originally the plan had been to do the trip in 5 days, but we all agreed that based on conditions, weight savings, and strength of our party, we could do it in four days and be back in time to celebrate the 4th of July. We eventually arrived at Glacier Ranger station to gather some beta and the usual registration crap. We then worked our way to the Hannegan Pass Trailhead. The weather was very warm and left around 10:30am. As we hiked in, great views of Ruth-Icy peak became apparent. After approximately 4 miles of moderate elevation gain, we reached the boundry camps at Hannegan Pass. Snowline was at about 4,5000ft. We took a solid break, refueled and then began our descent into the trees. Another 4 miles tooks us across copper creek and into dense forrest with downed alder, brush but with a fairly maintained trail. We then reached the Chilliwack River. We decided that even though we were fairlyhot and tired, instead of camping here at the river we would push on so we had less to do on Saturday. We finally reached the uppper alpine meadows and established camp and had a good dinner before bed.



Day 2 - 9.5 hours

The goal on day 2 was to make it to Perfect Pass. We ascended Easy Ridge and then dropped down about 1,500ft into what the basin that we later dubbed "Hells Canyon". The name is appropriate due to to the enormous amounts of talus, slabs, heather, brush and other obstacles that impede your way up to the start of the pass. We reached the "Imperfect Impasse", a large chasm that bars the way to Perfect Pass. We evaluted the chasm and determined that due to the crappy, unprotectable, loose 4th class rock we would again drop down approx 1,000ft and come up the other side. After lots of scrambling of slabs w/ waterfalls and bushwhacking, we finally reached Perfect Pass with great views of Whatcom Peak. We established another camp and were in bed by 10pm.


Crossing Easy Ridge


Indian Paintbrush and other wildflowers coming out.


Scrambling watefalls and slabs on the way up to Perfect Pass.

Day 3 - Summit Day - 16 hours

The night was clear and we awoke with summit fever and left camp at 4:50am. In order to gain the Challenger glacier from perfect pass, most parties elect to drop down a couple hundred feet. Instead of dropping straight down we took a more direct route in which we went up and traverssed to higher to get onto the glacier. We placed pickets since it was a fairly steep traversse and had a fairly sketch run-out.



After sunrise, we began to have incredible views of Baker and Shuksan behind us. After a couple hours of climbing we reached the main arete the leads to the summit ridge. A massive crevasse met us about half way that was pretty cool looking.




Begin the Challenger Knife Arete.


Genderms and a narrow rock ridge lead to the 5.7 crux and 40ft tower.


We simul-climbed most of the route until we reached the crux portion at which time we set up an anchor for the main 40ft crux section that leads to the summit.


Jeff on the true summit.



From the summit we had tremendous views of the Cascades. The entire picket range including Terror, Fury, Whatcom, Luna were visible, as were big ranges in Canada. We realized that we needed to make some headway back to camp. We got back to camp, packed up our gear and started the descent down off of perfect pass. This proved to be the most hot, exhausting and probably dangerous portion of the trip in many respects. We downclimbed the slabs and brush as much as possible until we decided to set up rappells. The first rap proved to be the worst as the only available anchor close to the cliff was a small tree shrub that we were fortunately able to back up. Rockfall became a major issue as we got into the gully, and the angle of our rappell tried to saw away at our 8mm rope. After making it to the bottom of the gully, we drank more water and made our way through the talus and started to climb back up towards the ridge. By this time it had become quite late, and we were exhausted from our summit day so we camped.

Day 4 - 10.5 Hours

We woke up at 6:00am, and left camp at around 7:30 for the long, brutal 15 mile hike back to the cars. It was a very long day in which we essentially retraced our steps, gaining and loosing elevation. Once we reached the Chilliwack, we took our boots off and decided to ford the river. We reached the cars at around 8:30pm and rushed back into the town of Glacier for some good beer and a hot dinnner before the resturants closed. This was truly an amazing alpine experience despite the very long approach. After everything was said and done, we ended up covering 40 miles of terrain, and gained over 17,231ft by the time the trip was over.



Shuksan in the background from the lower section of Easy Ridge.