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Trip Report    

Basic Glacier Climb - Mount Shuksan/Sulphide Glacier

As the sun rose and the team ascended the Sulphide glacier, it was described as “The most beautiful place I’ve ever seen”.

Erica Healy Erica Healy
July 23, 2025
  • Road rough but passable

  • The trip started out with heavy fog and a threat of possible rain with little to no rain accumulation.  Saturday’s cloud cover ended up being appreciated due to the warm temperatures, heavy packs, and mosquitoes.

    We parked and started from at the Shannon Ridge Trailhead. Then hiked up the Shannon Ridge Trail until the snow began and then did route finding to our camp on the Sulphide Glacier. We were unable to find the marked campsite sites or toilet due to the heavy fog. We camped at 6400 feet in the large flat area shown on Gaia.

    There were a couple places to get running water from the melting snow on the hillside. Getting to the water was sketchy at times. 

Mileage: 16 miles round trip

Elevation gain: 6,500 feet

From camp to summit: round trip 4.23 miles and 2,516 feet gain

Permits

To climb Mount Shuksan you will need to obtain a North Cascades National Park Backcountry Per. For more inform on how to obtain a permit go to recreation.gov. For wilderness trip planning maps and information, go to naps.gov. Cost was about $10 per person.

In addition, all vehicles parking at the trailhead needed a Northwest Forest Pass.

Rough Itinerary and Our Times:

Saturday:

8:00am arrive at trailhead, sort gear and move out. We arrived around 8:30 am and left the cars around 9:00 am.

Early afternoon locate and set up camp. Arrived at camp around 2:20 pm.

Early evening have dinner and get gear ready for an early Sunday start.

Sunday:

Wake up at 3:00 am and be ready to leave camp at 4:00 am

Arrive at base of Shuksan rock scramble section at 6:00 am. Took off crampons and began about 500 feet of a class 3 rock scrambling to summit. There was loose and falling rocks during entire scramble section.

Summit 8-9:00 am.

We started to down climbing at 9:30 am. Did one rappel down steep rock section and running belay between a picket and a rock anchor over a steep snow section.

Back to camp and get ready to leave 11-1 pm. Made it back to camp by 12:30 pm.

Back to car 3-4 pm

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