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Trip Report: Day 2 of 5 (Friday, July 13, 2001)
The wake-up call came too early. Way too early. I had just shut my eyes from the last night when the phone rang, announcing it was 5 AM. It was going to be a very long day for me, so I took a quick shower and headed downstairs with all my gear to check out and grab a bite to eat from the hotel's continental Breakfast. I met one of the climbers that was going to be with me and we both chatted as we waited for CAG to pick us up.
The van finally showed up around 6:15 and we all met each other. Steve Guthrie, who owns CAG introduced me to Dale, our guide, Grant, the climber I had already met, Bea, who had already tried to climb Shuksan once before, Philippe, an engineer and pretty experienced climber who worked for Microsoft, and Jim, an apple farmer from northwestern Washington. We all loaded up our gear, stoped by one of Seattle's millions of Starbucks for some drinks and headed Northeast towards the North Cascades National Park.
The trip up, all of us chatted about previous mountains we had climbed and all sorts of other things. About two hours out of Seattle, we came to the stop at the ranger office for the North Cascades National Park, sorted out gear into our backpacks, filled our water bottles, and got our permits to climb. I changed into my hiking apparel and laced up my brand new Koflach Degre boots and OR gaiters.
We stopped at a grocery store for last-minute items and started up to trail head. Walking into a store wearing full climbing gear is a rather interesting experience. About 10 AM or so, we started off from 3,100' and made our first steps towards our camp via the Shannon Ridge Trail up to the Sulphide Glacier -- a 4-mile, 5-hour hike. We took frequent breaks to remain hydrated and and check our feet for hotspots and blisters. I was thankfuly for the frequent breaks because they always occurred right was I was starting to get really tired from carrying a heavy pack.
At the last stop before our camp, apporximately 5,000', I donned glacier glasses, sunscreen and prepaired myself for the last pitch up to camp. It was a long hike on the snowfield up to the camp. But alas, at 3:30 PM, I finally dropped my back at 6,700', our home for the next 3 days. Almost instantly, I became cold and had to throw on a fleece jacket. I had sweated so much coming up that when I stopped, I instanly became cold.
But the views were so awesome. The upper reaches of the mountain were in heavy fog and I couldn't see the top, but I still could see a lot of mountains around us and the lower Sulphide and Crystal glaciers streaming from the top. For the next few hours, we rested up, hydreated and set up our tents and camp. We ate dinner and shortly afterwards, about 6 PM, I basically collapased into my tent and fell asleep. I was warm all night and after a visit to the bathroom (you take that for granted when you're home), I slept very well, basically exhausted after a long first day.
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