glaciers on steroids.

Climbing season approaches. This is someone's pano of the northern Pickets. The most remote and wild slice of the North Cascades. Incredible. Yes.

From what I've read in the past, getting into and out of the Pickets takes a few days, but a basecamp (how about down there at Lousy Lake?) can be set up and then multiple peaks can be climbed over the period of another couple days - from Fury to Luna to one of the highlights of this pocket of ice-clad iconic Cascade peaks ... Challenger.

Matthew and I met at a pub last week to chat among other things about the upcoming season. Still want to do our traverse of the Stuart range up the north face Sherpa glacier, tag the summit then onto Sherpa, Argonaut, Colchuck, Dragontail and Little Annapurna. A marathon. And the north face of Buckner. I'm in. Those are definites. We threw out possibly the Mowich Face of Rainier, something that's been on my list since about the time I first started climbing and is, well, quite intimidating (it's on the right in that photo). Let's see, what else ... oh yeah, Bonanza (which was on my list last year) and would be awesome as it requires an adventurous ferry ride up the Lady of the Lake on Lake Chelan to the town of Holden deep in the North Cascades. I'd love to run up and down Ruth Mountain too, mainly for this view of Shuksan. Spectacular.

Regardless of what we all end up climbing this season and since it is doubtful we'll make it out there this year, the Pickets will continue to lure. Like the Winds' Cirque of the Towers on glacier steroids.