A first-time “picketeer” climbs the Southern Picket’s tallest peak

The Pickets. Before I’d even moved to Washington, I’d read about the Pickets. The Pickets are notoriously described as “rugged”, “remote”, and “challenging”. What drew me to the Pickets initially was how wild & inaccessible they were. It was enough of a challenge just to get there - then you had the jagged peaks and cascading glaciers to contend with.

As long as I’ve been obsessed with the outdoors, I’ve loved the feeling of being small. The feeling of being so far “out there” that the cramped nature of civilization exists somewhere else – on some distant planet. I read Steph Abegg’s trip reports from the Pickets religiously while recovering from an injury in 2018, but never thought I’d find myself in a position to go. The air around the Pickets was too great for me to think I belonged there.

Then, just like the beginnings of many memorable trips, I got a text from Ben.

Day 1

Our first day was going to be a big one, and it didn’t help that there was a massive line waiting for permits already when we arrived at the ranger station’s opening at 7am. We were up for our permit an hour later, and the ranger told us that there was a missing person from two weeks ago in Crescent Creek, and to call them with our satellite phones if we found the body. With that ominous start, we raced off to the trailhead to start our approach in the steamy forests along Terror Creek. We walked for ~4 miles on “easy” trails - rugged by normal standards - before our trail to Stump Hollow & The Chopping Block diverged from the main trail to Terror Basin and Headed towards Crescent Creek.

We crossed Terror Creek early on, and things were pretty standard Washington for a while. Andreea even said, “Wow, this bushwacking isn’t that bad, maybe it’s exaggerated,” so of course we were in for it.

Truth be told, it wasn’t that bad. Sure, there were sections of steep root climbing, parts with dense brush that had no discernible trail, and loose, rocky dirt, but this is the Cascades after all. That being said, it was still a slog, and by the end I had enough plant matter caught in my clothes to start a small garden.

Eventually, we made our way above the trees and into fresher air. Things were less humid up here, and we were lucky to find a small reprise from the thick wildfire smoke from a few ridgelines over that filled the valley. The sky was still red/orange as we moved along grassy rock slabs, crossing dry creek beds and finding fields of berries. Andreea spotted a bear a hundred feet or so below us, and he seemed unphased by our presence. The berries were that good.

We continued up and found a small stream of water trickling down from a few remaining snow patches higher in the basin. We stocked completely up on water, as we didn’t know if we’d see any more before our big day in Crescent Creek Basin the next day. I skipped the communal alpine bath and instead drank about 4 liters of water and loaded 5 more into my pack. I filled my bottles upstream.

The day was wrapping up, and we were tired as we came closer to camp, having left Seattle that morning at 4am. The Chopping Block loomed over the Basin now, and it was more impressive than I had initially expected, which rang true for most of the “lesser” Pickets peaks.

Once on the chopping block ridge, we found 2 excellent tent sites, and enjoyed a nice view of Mount Terror as darkness engulfed the Pickets. The view of Terror was intimidating to say the least. Just getting to the base looked like it would be a challenge - crossing massive fields of sizeable talus. Then there was the “loose, steep, and dangerous” choss gulley to access the Rake/Terror notch, which looked absolutely terrible from where we stood. We made our dinners and got quickly to sleep.

Day 2

We didn’t get the earliest of starts, but we were fairly confident we’d be back to camp by mid-afternoon. A tale as old as time. I moved slow in the morning down the steep, large blocks of rock that descended from the ridge into Crescent Creek basin. This kind of terrain is where my weakness lies. Loose, shifting, massive blocks that move at random on a steep side-hill. Ben & Andreea seemed to float along the ankle-breaking boulders as I cursed my way across the slopes.

After crossing the slabs under Terror, and heading across a small snowfield for 100ft or so, we found ourselves at the base of the chossy gulley. I donned my helmet, and feeling anxious, went ahead up the gulley to scout. I scrambled my way up to the large chockstone, investigated, and then joined Andreea & Ben in navigating around the large pillar that divided the gulley about halfway up.

It was at the top of this detour that the rock quality deteriorated quickly, and despite our best efforts moving carefully and in sections, Ben dislodged a skateboard-sized rock and yelled, “Rock!” I quickly stepped through with my right leg and flattened my body against the wall next to me. The rock hit the ground 5 feet in front of me and rebounded into my left foot, blasting it off the spot where it rested. Thankfully, most of my weight was on my right leg, the bounce reduced a lot of the energy of the rock, and I was shaken but okay. Had the rock hit me directly, things might not have been so okay.

From here, we climbed the remainder of the gulley one at a time, making sure everyone else was sheltered. The very top of the gulley was the worst of the worst, and I grabbed fistfulls of sand to claw myself up the last 10 feet. Once at the notch, we traversed a melted-out moat around the spike separating the notch from the West Ridge, and found ourselves in another loose gulley at the base of the climb.

Andreea had elected to lead the pitches pre-trip, but I think all of us were less than excited after the loose gulley. We had only brought 2x30m 6mm RAD lines, a few nuts, and a few cams. It was all “mental pro”. Turns out we didn’t bring enough small gear to protect the crux moves anyways, but Andreea still crushed the pitches and hauled the boys up. As we climbed, the snow patches on the other side of the notch warmed up and broke periodically, releasing tons of rockfall that set the tone for the place we found ourselves in. On the second pitch Andreea dropped a trekking pole on my head that was supposed to stay attached to her bag. I was pretty ready for someone else to get hit by something for a change.

Once at the top of the climbing, we moved into easy 2nd class terrain, moving up increasingly blocky rock ledges. Eventually the blocks became a field of delicately balanced boulders, a “house of cards” as Andreea put it. These cards were moving, and the instability was unexpected, as most of these boulders looked too big to move. I had a stack fall out from under me just as Ben yelled, “Rock!” again. A sizeale rock hurdled straight towards Andreea and stopped just before reaching her.

We were just below the false summit and needed to downclimb to the notch between the false & true summits before climbing the 4th class upper headwall. It was at this point that Andreea bailed. The choss got to her, and she went to wait by the rappels. I came really close to doing the same, but I instead climed up the headwall with Ben.

When I made it to the summit, Ben smiled and said, “Well aren’t you glad you came?” I grumbled out a “yeah” along with the rest of my sanity before poking the summit, taking a 2 minute look around, and heading down. The day had somehow escaped us, and we no longer had time on our side. Some weather was moving in too, and thick fog engulfed the lower mountain and many of the surrounding peaks.

We rappeled, and as Ben was unclipping from the rope he saw a piece of the Terror Glacier calve, which I had just been talking about wanting to see. Why it’s called the Terror Glacier escapes me though, because it’s not even under Mount Terror. Some mysteries have to remain mysteries.

Once down from the rappels, and getting the ropes upstuck twice, we moved carefully down the loose gulley. I went first, and it was practically impossible to avoid rockfall on the descent. Thank god we were in the Pickets, and we hadn’t seen a soul since the ranger station. I rode a sliding pile of sand a gravel down most of the way, hopping off and crab-walking my way down more granular loose bits. I radioed up once I was all the way down to where the rappels began behind the large column. I perched high on the side of a cliff, making sure I wouldn’t get hit by any more objects today.

The final rappels went smoothly, and we were done with the choss gulley descent, which had been weighing on my mind all day. As much of a relief as that was, the fog had engulfed the basin, and the sun was nearly gone. We got what water we needed for the return journey plus camp, moved quickly across the slabs, and returned to the chunky boulders. Night struck just as we neared the steep talus climb back to the ridge, and the thick fog combined with headlamp light led to a complete loss of vision. Andreea & Ben shone their lights down on me from above, and even though I could barely see my hand in front of me, I raced up towards the ridge.

We whooped and screamed for our success making it back to camp as a team in once piece. We were exhausted from the length and continuous “on”-ness of the day, and ate huge dinners before a well earned sleep in the cold night.

Day 3

In the morning, I heard Ben & Andreea getting ready, discussing West McMillian Spire. We had talked about doing it the day after Terror, but I had had enough the previous day, so I declined, more than happy to enjoy the exceptional views from camp. I made a leisurely breakfast, and enjoyed amazing weather and light through the morning. Around mid-morning, I packed up my water containers and left for a little journey to find water. Along the way I ate huckleberries, and hopped along rocks in the alpine, happy to be aimless.

Eventually, through radio communications, it was clear Andreea & Ben wouldn’t be making it to West McMillian. The west-to-east crossing of a feature called The Barrier had proven to be just that. The Barrier is a notoriously difficult “Pickets 3rd class” ridge that divides Terror and Crescent Creek basins. We’d not found any beta saying that finding the point of crossing from the top was easy, and I eventually met up with the others to look at the Barrier. We found a spot we thought might be it, but it looked incredily steep and grassy.

Ben & Andreea went to summit the high point on the Barrier, and I returned to camp to meet a pair of humans who had appeared on the ridge by our camp. They had camped in Terror Basin, crossed The Barrier, and were headed down the schwack that afternoon. They attempted to give me beta on The Barrier, but no amount of pictures or descriptions would have helped. The beta they gave told me all I needed to hear. One of the pair described the crux as “10 no-hands grassy, muddy moves that were past my comfort level”.

Yeah no thanks.

By early evening, a storm rolled in earlier than expected. Ben & Andreea were downclimbing the sub-peak when it started raining. The storm was periodic at first, so they waited it out and returned to camp safely. We wrapped dinner up early, and it soon rained harder and got windy on our ridge. The sound of the rain and wind on my tent knocked me out, and I had an amazing night of sleep.

Day 4

In the morning, nearly frozen, I packed up my tent in short bursts in the windy mist. I hadn’t brought gloves, so I would shove my hands into my pockets to reheat them when they numbed out. My tent was soaked and coated my hands in thick mud as I rolled things up. I drank a coffee, we caught a final glimpse of the southern pickets through a break in the mist, and made our way down now-wet slabs with new streams of water.

Once down to treeline, every bush, shrub, and tree we passed dumped mist/dew on us. We were soaked inside & out within minutes. We slipped so much on wet shrubs that we had a competition to see who would fall the most, and they’d have to buy the other two beer. We made great time on the way out, and were surprised to get through the 1.5k steep schwack descent from the ridge back to Terror Creek in only an hour. We were so soaked we didn’t even need to take our shoes off for the creek crossing. We cruised the remainder of the way out and headed for the nearest burger. Andreea “walking is the crux” Gabor definitely lost the competition, and come to think of it, Andreea never bought us those beers.

My first trip to the Pickets was humbling and incredible. I feel blessed to have been able to spend so much time in such a special place. I will undoutedly be back for more.