Mount Challenger via Eiley-Wiley
Ian and I took the Eiley-Wiley route to Mount Challenger. The only
thing I'd add to Nelson's description in
Selected Climbs in the Cascades, Volume 1
is that the south side of the "notch" route over point 7374 is
potentially awful. Here is our experience with it.
From the 7240'+ notch (just SE of the summit block of point 7374) we
descended a loose, rocky gully to a snowfield. Then we continued
down the fall line into a narrow, steep, snow gully that had water
pouring into it. We had to scramble down a creek in one section where
the snow had completely melted out. While climbing down the snow some
rock spontaneously broke off and fell into the gully, fortunately the
rock stopped in the moat. Down climbing the gully was tedious and
tiring and the rockfall hazard was bad.
On our return from the summit we took a longer route that traverses
north around point 7374 and we were much happier with it.
Date:
2007/07/14
to 2007/07/18
Elevation gain:
8,435 feet
Trip type:
intermediate climb
USGS quad:
Mount Challenger
Car-to-car:
5 days
-
8 hours 40 minutes
ascending
from
Big Beaver dock
to
Beaver Pass camp
-
8 hours 44 minutes
ascending
from
Beaver Pass camp
to
camp above Eiley Lake
-
2 hours 28 minutes
ascending
from
camp above Eiley Lake
to
east end of Challenger Glacier
-
3 hours 42 minutes
ascending
from
east end of Challenger Glacier
to
summit of Mount Challenger
-
1 hour 43 minutes
descending
from
summit of Mount Challenger
to
east end of Challenger Glacier
-
3 hours 7 minutes
descending
from
east end of Challenger Glacier
to
camp above Eiley Lake
-
4 hours 26 minutes
descending
from
camp above Eiley Lake
to
Beaver Pass
-
2 hours 30 minutes
descending
from
Beaver Pass
to
Luna Camp
-
3 hours 18 minutes
descending
from
Luna Camp
to
Big Beaver dock