Just a Picket

"Where am I?" I'd wonder, once again awakening cold and shivering. Looking up, I see the specter of my nightmares looming overhead, beguiling me with her contours of ridge and arcs of slope. I try to fall back asleep, but with each sporadic waking I grasp that I am indeed in the Picket Range, scared as hell they'd keep me there forever entombed in those moonlit fingers of snow and ice. In May, 1985 Jens Kieler along with brothers Carl and Lowell Skoog pioneered a ski traverse through the esoteric Picket Range. In the quarter century since, to their knowledge, no one has repeated this impressive feat.

In the 1986 article Lowell wrote for Rock and Ice Magazine about their adventure, Lowell says near the conclusion, "...as we plodded slowly down the steep trail to Diablo, our legs were wobbly, our hands and faces sunburned and our feet aching. But our mountain souls were soaring. We had skied the Pickets, and in so doing had found the climax of the North Cascade high routes." These words inspired this adventure. Monday morning before the trip, I stare at an email from a stranger: "I'm headed to the Pickets for a ski traverse during the approaching high pressure system, and I'm looking for a partner." Forest McBrian is a single test (in ski mountaineering) away from becoming a fully certified AMGA guide, one of only a handful in the entire country.

I couldn't have asked for a better partner. For six days in the middle of winter, Forest, Kyle and I would complete a high traverse of the Pickets, from Stetattle Ridge, down McMillan Cirque, over Mt. Fury, down into Luna Cirque, over Mt. Challenger, down Perfect Pass then out via the Mineral High Route to Hannegan Pass Road. The route crosses 80 kilometers of some of the most wild and remote mountains in the lower 48. Leaving Diablo Lake at the 300 meters elevation, loaded with gear and optimism, Forest, Kyle and I begin our climb through thick woods along a steeply winding trail up to Stetattle Ridge. Beat poet Gary Snyder's summer as a fire lookout near here in 1953 inspired his story, among others, featured in the book Poets on the Peaks.

As we put on our skins, and rise high enough to peer over ridge tops, I understand why these vistas would inspire poetry. Hiking up and down ridges, ever nearing the heart of the range I see not just peaks, but arms and legs, torsos and heads; where one mountain begins another peeks out within this tightly bound range of more than 21 summits over 2,280 meters high. As I carve out snow and set up my bivy, I can only think about getting closer to this convolution of alpine seductiveness. For the next day and a half our feet and skis reach forward then pull back over terrain. Beneath McMillan Spires, a spine of rock and snow bristle with trees reminding me that where life has a will there is a way.

At night darkness crawls from the valleys like Ninjas, cornering us in our bivies. Morning brings warmth only when our bodies start to move. A few hours into our third morning, the view down into McMillan Creek Cirque dismantles our confidence, triggering an alarm in our thoughts: "Oh my God, I go down there, I am committed!" Kyle finds conditions too risky, and bids us farewell turning back the way we came. Looking ahead I am so close I can feel the cold breath of wind sucking me in. The edge of McMillan Creek Cirque, where we perch, is dominated by cornices that reach over the shadowed confines of this massive valley. Forest drops in with a push and I follow. Uncertainty mediates our negative thoughts, and unclogs the moment.

With the north cirque walls looming an hour behind us, the sun breaks out from behind Mount Terror and splashes the few precious hours of daily light this valley receives per day. Warming on rocks next to a gurgling stream I pull up another bottle of clean, crisp water, and bathe in the light that rolls in like ocean waves. All worries scatter. In 1985 Skoog and party had climbed over Outrigger Peak before descending into McMillan Cirque. A direct route made more sense in winter, so we begin our fourth day by ascending through trees, passing upper snowfields in a blink. Avalanche worries convince us not to climb Fury but the descent and climb up to Luna-Fury Col looks perfect.

Between cornices, we drop into powder laced with wind board, un-bottled perfection top to bottom. I follow Forest on a high traverse, climbing with skins until we both look down into snowy, tree-sprinkled Luna Creek Cirque. Between bites of cheese, Forest predicts, "These will be the best turns of my life." As we glide over the top and descend, I think how right he is. Beneath the North Face of Mount Fury, we climb over avalanche debris for hours before finding escape on the Challenger Glacier. After an 2,440 meters day of climbing, we arrive at our camp. I flatten out a small bivy spot with excellent views of the NE Face of Mount Fury. As night blossomed, I spent an hour with numb fingers trying to capture a mountain's restless night in one shot.

On the fifth morning I awake shivering, again. An hour later, once over Mount Challenger's broad glacier shoulder, the core of the Picket Range recedes from view. Beyond crevasses and terrible snow, we proceed through aptly named landmarks like Perfect Pass and Imperfect Impasse to the laid-back contours of Easy Ridge. Further along, emboldened by a cloudless sky, we continue on the Mineral Mountain High Route rather than dropping to the Chilliwack Trail. We sidestep the treacherous fangs of cliff on Mineral Mountain's northwest face and find a small couloir, as wide as my skis, that grants passage to the slopes below, and to Chilliwack Pass where we spend our final night.

Day six brings us up onto the upper slopes of Ruth Mountain where shady, powder filled slopes give way to sunlit landscapes rolling away ahead. We round Ruth's west face in a cold breeze and eat the remaining scraps of food. Neither of us wants to hurry to the journey's end. Submitting to it, I mumble, "We should go." How soon, I know, we'll be back to the easy life and the creature comforts it's good to have, but not all of the time. An hour later, my skis shudder to a stop on a rock strewn trail lost under a canopy of forest, then slice free into open fields of white, outlined by the swift waters of Ruth Creek. The skis soon lay on weary shoulders, no longer racing uninhibited from the unforgiving Picket Range.

Unlike Forest and I, they are unafraid. No matter how often I visit, I will always awaken fearful of these mountains. To me that's what makes them so extraordinary.