Hannegan pass came up quickly, and we stopped for a quick snack before heading to the right. We hiked over a small knoll and then fought through half melted-out creek beds and bushes up to a plateau beneath a high point. I left arrows in the snow for Kyle just in case, who was behind us since he had to run back and get the camera he forgot at our snack spot.

Fortunately, after that slope, the rest of the route was clear sailing. We joined up with the ridge on the other side, where some parts of the trail were even melted out! From the base of the snow fields, it just felt like a steep hike. There is a glacier, but this early in the season, there were no crevasses to contend with. If you drop lower on the route (especially later in the season), it sounds like you’ll probably want to rope up. We took turns breaking trail, and eventually put on crampons. The snow was soft enough that they weren’t necessary, but I could feel the difference they made. But euuuuughh, I forgot how awful they feel on rocks. Scraping like nails on a chalkboard. Yuck.

At points, the ridge turned into a mini knife edge before climbing steeply, and it was one of those hikes where you have to try to not be distracted by the ridiculous views around you. I have to thank Brian for not complaining when I stopped to try and get pictures of him every five minutes. There’s too much to see! You’re standing on a snowfield but it’s 70 degrees outside and you’re surrounded by snowy peaks in every direction and contoured snow sculpted by the wind and so quiet and serene that you almost don’t even want to speak.

We were heading up to the rock (if you’ve been there, you know the one I’m talking about) and cut to the right of it. We weren’t sure whether the snow cap near the rock was the true summit or not. It seemed too easy, it couldn’t be that close. Cresting it, we realized we did indeed have a bit more vertical gain ahead of us, and five minutes later, we were on the summit!

Part of the summit was melted out, and some rocks had been piled up in small bivvy style shelters to protect from the wind. Wait, how is that the first thing that comes to mind? The views! Shuksan! Holy crap, Shuksan looked unbelievable. You rarely see it from such a great angle. Glaciers cascading, and a nice rocky cirque leading up to the peak. To the left is Icy Peak, a traverse commonly done from Ruth. A climb I’d love to do someday, but not when my buddy is waiting at the bottom of the trail. Glimpses of the north end of the Picket range (I’m obsessed) and of course, hundreds of peaks I didn’t recognize. And if you turn around, you have lush green valleys backed by Church and Goat mountains. Ridiculous. I used to say I’d prefer to go blind than deaf (I mean neither are ideal okay) but now… now I’m debating that.

We spent half an hour or so taking a power nap (five star nap on a five star day with five star views) on the summit, and I managed to grab a time lapse and plenty of snacks and pictures. The summit register’s pen was dead! And there was only one sad little piece of paper. We finally got up to head down, and started off back towards Hannegan Pass.

On our way back down the snow field, we passed the group who had given Kyle the pair of shoes. We stopped to chat, and someone asked if we had made the arrows in the snow. I had completely forgotten! They laughed and thanked us, saying it was a confidence boost every time they came across one.

We got back down to Hannegan Pass, and Kyle was nowhere to be found so we figured (hoped? We knew he could take care of himself and we had left him on safe ground so we weren’t too worried) he was back at the car. We knew the last four miles were fairly flat, so it should be a quick return trip. Brian turned to me and asked if I wanted to slow-jog the rest of the way back to speed things up a bit. I looked down at my chunky Nepal Evos, shrugged, and thought hell, if I can run in these boots then I shouldn’t have any issues climbing in them. So let’s give it a shot.

And we jogged the remaining four miles. I felt ridiculous, but it was beautiful and efficient and reminded me why I like trail running. The only thing that went wrong with the boots was that they untied about a mile from the end of the trail. I have to say, that was the LAST issue I expected to have running in fully insulated mountaineering boots. I thought everything else would go wrong first. Hot feet, shin bang, blisters, nope. Just untied laces. So I stooped to retie them, grabbed a drink from a nearby stream, and caught up with Brian and Kyle back at the trailhead.

We spent some time chilling by the river (which was a little sandy! Who knew!) to cool off and relax before the drive home. On the way back, we stopped at a the North Fork Brewery to get drinks and pizza, which were both delicious. I’d recommend the Thai pizza. It seems like a weird combo, but I think it was the best of the three that we got. And naturally we had to finish all of the pizzas.

Oh, and then it turned out someone had left my trunk open for our entire dinner meal. Ironic, because as I was walking in I saw a Subaru with an open trunk and thought “wow, people are so trusting out here!” and upon getting back to my car, there was the wide open trunk with thousands of dollars worth of mountaineering gear. But nothing was taken! Unbelievable.

Damn, this was a great hike. Photos never do it justice. Strava map here if you want to see our route. Also, I want to give a shout out to Kurt Smith, one of the guys who offered Kyle his shoes. He’s got some breathtaking photos from Ruth (and a bunch of others in general). Here’s his blog, go check it out!

I’d love to go back here and do the Icy traverse. The whole area is just spectacular. It’s a bit of a drive from Seattle, but every time I’ve gone up north it’s been completely worth it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sore enough to take my mind off hiking the next day. As usual, it had the opposite effect. Where do I go next? What peaks are like Ruth, mostly snow climbs where I can leave the crevasse gear behind but feel like I’m in a totally alpine place? This is why I moved out here.