Some of Andrews Summer Excitement

In early July I got the chance to attempt make an epic climb in the North Cascades of Washington. I along with a couple of my very good friends, Brian Russel and Jeff Widman, and 5 other people hiked from Ross lake, over the top of Mount Challenger, into Whatcom county, where I grew up. The first day was 14 miles, the second was much harder. And Shorter. We bushwhacked up 3000 feet of elevation and then traversed along treacherous cliff faces with stunning views into the Picket Range, beautiful ice-bound lakes and, short of our destination, stopped on a ridge around 7,000 feet just in time for sunset. The next day was the easiest of the trip. We descended onto a the Challenger glacier, and climbed it to the top of the mountain. The very top, however took some rock climbing up above two thousand feet of shear cliffs. It was pretty incredible! Back down the other side of the mountain before dinner. We were planning that the next day would be our rest day, but, we had no such luck. We were forced to climb deep into a valley and then back out in order to get past “the imperfect impasse” a gully that cleaves the side of the mountain and, to many, is impassable. Our final day was just 20 miles of hiking.... Enjoy the photos.

That is truly one of the most wonderful places I have been, and is clearly the hardest place to which I have ever drug myself.

Mr. Widman (Jeff's father) on the tip of the mountain.

One of the ice-bound lakes


Alpenglow on Challenger.

The Luna Cirque and Pickett Wall