Hannegan Peak

July 6, 2024

1886m

Mt. Baker Area, WA

Hannegan Peak is one of the easiest but very scenic summit in the vicinity of Mt. Baker and because of that, this is a very popular destination. I always thought I’d combine it with Granite Mountain and “Mt. Chardonnay” to make a bigger trip but in the end I opted to just do Hannegan Peak by itself. This is a beautiful area that I wouldn’t mind to come back another time. This was the day before the departure of my annual summer international peak-bagging trip so I wasn’t keen on anything difficult. To make it worse I did not come back home until 1:30 am in the previous night so the most I could sleep was 3 hours. I made the plan with Lulu and Pan about a week ago and I wouldn’t going to bail, so at 5 am I dragged my exhausted self out of the bed and drove down to Pan’s home. Thankfully Pan offered to be the driver this time as otherwise this trip would not happen. I slept through most of the drive but I did have to wake up momentarily to buy some sandwiches and also for the border crossing. The final few kilometers to Hannegan Pass trail-head was rough with lots of pot-holes but I was still able to sleep through most of that.

Hannegan Peak via Hannegan Pass trail. GPX DL

The day was already bright and hot and the actual trail-head was completely full. We had to park on the side of the road about 200 m back, and applied sun protection before even starting the hike. I also needed some extra time to have breakfast so our trail-head routine wasn’t very quick. The 7 km hike to Hannegan Pass was decently scenic with lots of open stretches but the hike itself was mundane and boring. I honestly did not enjoy it as much as I thought I would, probably because I was still in the process of waking up. I had opted to wear only trail-runners without carrying any traction device and I knew there’s some risks with that, but I was very exhausted and desperately needed to lighten the loads. We did encounter some snow fields on the upper south ridge above Hannegan Pass but the snow condition was soft and there were plenty of tracks. The crampons and ice axes were definitely not needed. There weren’t a ton of mosquitoes, thankfully, so we lingered on the summit for quite a while to take a bunch of pictures. The traverse towards Granite Mountain was definitely tempting but I knew I must reserve energy for the travel ahead.

The Hannegan Pass trail was extremely busy on a weekend in summer

Ruth Mountain. This is a very popular hike apparently

Already on the south ridge of Hannegan Peak

The landslide ahead looks somewhat like a volcanic zone

Lulu plodding across one of the many patches of snow

Mt. Redoubt in the distance with Bear Mountain to the right

Lulu on the summit of Hannegan Peak with Ruth Mountain behind

Lulu on the summit now with Mt. Challenger behind

A zoomed-in view of Mt. Shuksan and Nooksack Tower

Another photo of Lulu with Mt. Sefrit behind

Pan has always been the professional photographer here

Our group shot on the summit of Hannegan Peak

After having enough of the views we leisurely descended back to the pass, and then plodded back to the parking lot. The 7 km trail felt like a slog and we had to make a few stops to load up water and also to cool ourselves down. The day had become nuclear hot by the afternoon. I again, slept through at least half of the drive. We then had a dinner in a local Pho restaurant in White Rock before going home.