The Pickets hold a special place in the lore of the North Cascades. They are ultra-remote, rugged and wild, and are guarded on all sides by deep, densely wooded valleys. Ever since our trip to Luna Peak a year prior, Fern and I had been hoping to make a return trip to the range.
We concocted a (perhaps foolish) plan to climb West McMillan Spire, the only non-technical summit in the southern Pickets, in a day. Although non-technical, it would still be a massive day on tough terrain, and no easy feat.
We got started at 5:15 am from the Goodell Creek Campground on the unmaintained Goodell Creek trail. I was prepared for significant bushwhacking and general misery on this trail, but it was surprisingly well defined. Travel was surprisingly good in the valley as we made quick work of the first ~3.5 miles.
Here, the climber’s path took a sharp right-hand turn and began to climb steeply up into the high country. This part of the journey was quite the quad-burner, but I was still shocked at how well defined the climber’s path was. It resembled the approaches to Eldorado and Snowfield, something I would not have predicted going in.
Up, up, up we went, climbing over occasional downed logs, and sometimes using our hands to hoist us up steeper sections. Everything was going incredibly well, until the trail seemed to peter out around 4800’. It had been so well defined that we were taken aback by how seemingly absent the trail was now. We were in an area with small cliffs, and it didn’t look like we were heading the right way. We kept pushing forward a bit, before deciding that there was no way our heading was correct. Breaking out our GPS units, it seemed like we had somehow gotten 100 feet lower than the trail. It took some heinous bushwhacking up steep terrain to correct our course, but we were finally able to locate the trail again, which was looking as well defined as ever. Neither of us were quite sure how we lost it, but we were both confident we wouldn’t make the same mistake on the return journey.
After that bit of excitement, we continued moving forward, contouring with the slope and steadily moving upward. Here we started to get our first views of the McMillan Spires and the Chopping Block across the valley. What an amazing area we were in.
The “trail” led us up to a small pass at around 6200’, where we were greeted with amazing views and faced with a crappy, loose, downclimb for a couple hundred feet. This downclimb took some care, but we made it down without trouble, finding ourselves in an area with small streams and pools. A beautiful setting below the imposing spires and points of the Pickets.
From here we continued contouring between 5800 and 5600’ on open terrain with some boulder hopping involved, passing a new-looking meltwater lake in the process. Beyond the lake, we made the final climb up to the spires on mostly blocky class 2. This was fun travel in a truly dramatic setting. We eventually transitioned from rock to snow and climbed up on a moderate slope to the base of the spire.
Here, we were confronted with a couple tricky class 3+ moves on slightly loose rock to surmount the first rock band. From there, however, it was all standard Cascades class 2-3 to the summit, which was large enough for the two of us and had a surprisingly nice rock for sitting. We had reached the summit 7 hours and a half hours after we started.
The views from the top were ridiculous. Looking down the spine of the most rugged part of the North Cascades was incredibly special. I also loved peering almost straight down into Azure Lake, I can’t imagine it gets many visitors year. On top of this, we had unique views of Luna, Snowfield Peak, Shuksan and countless other rugged peaks. There had been some wildfire smoke plaguing the area, but we got lucky with a push of marine air and had only slightly hazy skies with plenty of blue above us.
We took a good bit to admire the unbelievably scenic spot we found ourselves in, but eventually had to grapple with the fact that we were a LONG way from our car. We packed up and reversed course, carefully picking our way down the mildly exposed ridge of the spire. The final class 3+ bit seemed a bit hairier on the descent than we remembered, so we opted for a short loose, gully to the skiers right of our ascent route. This proved to be an unwise decision, as I took a short slide on some loose rock in the gully despite taking it with the utmost caution. Thankfully, there wasn’t much exposure, and I didn't go far, but in retrospect just downclimbing our ascent route would have been safer.
After dusting myself off, we began our descent in earnest, stopping at the meltwater lake for a shockingly cold swim. It was a good refresh, because now the grim reality of how huge of a day this was going to be was becoming more and more apparent to us. We continued on, having to stop twice before reaching the small pass to put down some calories to keep us going. The climb back up to the pass was the closest either Fern or I had ever come to bonking in our lives. It felt like I was burning the last calories I had to lug myself back up to the pass.
Thankfully it was all downhill from that point on, and our spirits rose as we reached more solid trail. Now all we had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other and we would make it back to our car eventually. There had been a shift in the winds, and now it seemed like wildfire smoke was pouring back into the region. The view back towards the Pickets was much hazier than it had been before, which made us even more eager to get back down to the car. The descent was bone-jarringly steep but went well. We were in surprisingly good spirits despite our exhausted and calorie-deprived states – I guess we were still riding the high of standing on top of a precipitous spire in the Pickets!
We hit the valley just barely before darkness set in. At this point, there was nothing to do but get our headlamps out and power out the final 3 and a half miles. We were both so tired and almost delirious at this point that the hike out was a total blur. I remember talking but don’t know what we talked about, and the encroaching brush and light from our headlamps played weird tricks on our tired eyes. It was a surreal experience, but we eventually popped out back at our car – a solid 16 and a half hours and almost 20,000 feet of elevation change later.
A trip to the Pickets is never easy, much less if you do it in a day. I am thankful we made it in and out safely and had such a great, albeit tough, time doing it. The Pickets are a truly special place, and I hope to make many more return journeys over the course of my life.
Final Stats: 18.83 miles / 9912 feet of ascent
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