Mount Shuksan via Sulphide Glacier

Date: June 13-14, 2026

Distance: 24km

Elevation gain: 2085m

Mount Shuksan is a majestic mountain in the North Cascades in Washington, near Mount Baker. From all angles, its rugged profile is quite impressive. Fred Beckey once described it as “one of the finest mountaineering objectives in the North Cascades”. The intimidating summit pyramid rises out of a high plateau dominated by the Sulphide Glacier. 

There are many routes to the summit. Most climbers will take the Fisher’s Chimneys route (class 4) or the Sulphide Glacier route, which involves a long walk along the glacier, to get to the base of the summit pyramid. From there, your options are the central gully to the summit (class ¾) or the Southeast Rib (5.4).

The mountain is located in North Cascades National Park and permits are quite difficult to get, so when Isaac managed to secure one I immediately decided to take advantage of this opportunity. We had a large group, but some people dropped out due to concerns about the snow conditions: it was going to be a very sunny and warm weekend. Others bailed due to illness. In the end the trip consisted of me, Isaac, and Jacob from the BCMC who joined the trip at the last minute. It turns out I’d already met him on Wedge Mountain a few weeks earlier. Small world. 

We drove to the Shannon Ridge trailhead (Northwest Forest Passes are required here) and started hiking on Saturday morning. It was a long plod but it went by quickly. As we reached the ridge, Baker could be seen through the trees. 

We put our boots on around 1650m, just before a traverse along a snowy slope with some avalanche debris. It was late enough in the day that the snow was soft and postholing happened, but it wasn’t as bad as we’d expected. We continued along the slope, eventually reaching the glacier. The views of the jagged peaks around us became better and better. 

As we continued up the glacier, we caught our first glimpse of the summit pyramid. It looked quite intimidating…

The most common campsite is at a flat spot around 1900 metres. However, everything was buried in snow anyway, so we decided to push as far as we could and establish a high camp. At one point, we looked behind us to see a group of 12 people way below. We continued plodding along the glacier, following the existing track, until we reached a massive flat area at ~2300 metres below the Hourglass. Here we set up camp. 

At this point we weren’t feeling too optimistic about summiting. It was going to be even warmer the next day and the snow would soften quickly. In the end, we planned to wake up earlier than planned and make an attempt. We would have to ascend and descend as quickly as possible to avoid hazardous conditions in the heat. 

We had dinner - during which one of us discovered that tent pegs actually make pretty good chopsticks - and then went to sleep. 

I woke up at one point to see the sun set behind Mount Baker. The summit pyramid loomed above our camp. It looked like a scary cliff with no obvious route up.

The alarm went off in the middle of the night and we left camp at 3:30am. The snow was solid enough that we decided to go for it. The sunrise was epic. Far below us, we saw 12 headlamps slowly but surely making their way along the glacier…

In no time we reached the base of the summit pyramid. We followed the existing bootpack as the terrain got steeper and steeper. We passed several rappel stations, most of which seemed to be in good condition. A previous team had left multiple carabiners at a few of them. 

At one point the bootpack split and we took the right fork, heading uphill. The snow eventually ran out, so we took the crampons off and climbed up the rock. It looked daunting at first, but the rock soon ended and we were back on snow. A little while later, we reached a ledge which led us into the main gully. (On the descent, we were able to stay on snow for almost all the way down).

From here we climbed the gulley for tens of metres. It was initially around 45 degrees but got steeper and icier. Eventually the snow ended and a few steps took us to a park bench-sized ledge on the southeast ridge. 

We climbed up the last few steps on the southeast ridge, which wasn’t too difficult but the exposure was severe on both sides. It turned out that the summit was right there!

As expected, the views were epic. Baker stole the show to the west, and the jagged mountains of the Chilliwack area and the American side of the North Cascades were spectacular. We could even see part of the town of Chilliwack. There was a massive cliff to the northwest. 

We were nervous about downclimbing the ridge, so we set up a rappel anchor on the summit. As we were doing this, the first of three rope teams from the 12-person group showed up. They were from a well-known Seattle-based mountaineering club. We chatted with the first one while her friends slowly but surely made their way to the summit. Once they were out of the way, we could finally rappel down.

We arrived at the ledge to find the first members of rope team #2 there, helping the rest of their team exit the gulley and onto the ledge. Below them, rope team #3 was also ascending the upper gulley. 

This created a problem. We couldn’t keep going down, since team #3 and part of team #2 were blocking our way. Team #2 couldn’t continue to the summit until we descended, since we were stuck between them and the ridge, with no room for them to maneuver around. Once all four of them left the gulley, there would be seven people on a ledge the size of a park bench, with significant exposure in every direction. This meant that team #3 also couldn’t advance until we left.

We worked out a plan: team #2 would get all of their members to the ledge, team #3 would wait in the gulley, then we would rappel down so everyone could continue. Team #2 took a while, and at one point team #3 said they were cold and started climbing again, but our group and team #2 asked them to hold off before they got too close to our rappel line. Once all of team #2 had made it to the ledge, Jacob started rappelling down the rope.

Team #3 started moving again, directly into the path of Jacob’s rappel! To avoid turning this mountain into the world’s worst bowling alley, we quickly shouted at them to stop. They kept climbing anyway, but eventually got the hint and backed off. Isaac and I finally rappelled down. We had left the summit at 6:50 and it had taken almost two hours to clear the ledge.

Once below the crowds, the rest of the descent went quicker. We downclimbed some more, then did one more rappel, then continued down increasingly soft and slushy snow. To completely avoid downclimbing, you'd want a 60-metre rope: our 50-metre rope would not have bene sufficient. At one point my crampon fell off and landed quite a bit below me but I managed to retrieve it. Eventually we reached the base of the pyramid. It was very, very warm by that point and we were glad to be out of that gully. 

From there it was a long plod along the glacier in the rapidly rising temperatures, with some fun glissades along the way. As before, the views were stunning. We reached the car in the early afternoon, stopped for a shockingly expensive dinner at Sedro-Woolley’s only Mexican restaurant, then drove all the way back to Canada. 

This was the most technically difficult summit I've attempted so far and I'm glad that we climbed it. Debacle aside, Shuksan was an epic trip, and one I would highly recommend.