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[TR] Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier 6/8/2008


Sol

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Trip: Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier

 

Date: 6/8/2008

 

Trip Report:

Well, I decided to take my own advice and give the ice cliff glacier route on Mt. Stuart a whirl. The Chris and I were amazed at the perfect conditions. Thunker neve from camp to the top of the couloir, them perfect wind-packed ice and snow to the summit. We thought the line was dramatic and highly alpine, with endless tool-swingin and front-pointing. There were two other parties of three below us on route, a good time was had by all. Props to team three for enduring all the ice and snowfall from above and for gettin-er-done in a day.

 

She looked mighty uninviting the night before:

ICG1.JPG

 

 

Deja vu:

ICG2_2_.JPG

 

 

The Ice Cliff:

]ICG3b.JPG

 

 

ICG3c.JPG

 

 

Boom!

ICG5.JPG

 

 

Topping out on the ice cliff:

ICG5_2_.JPG

 

 

Upper couloir and the girth pillar:

ICG6b.JPG

 

 

ICG7.JPG

 

 

Towards the top of the couloir:

ICG8.JPG

 

 

ICG9.JPG

 

 

Looking down at team three:

ICG10.JPG

 

 

Team two on the summit ridge:

ICG11.JPG

 

 

Summit views:

ICG13.JPG

 

 

ICG15.JPG

 

 

Team three on the summit ridge:

ICG14b.JPG

 

 

Team two starting the descent down the sherpa:

ICG14.JPG

 

It really was amazing how much the mountain had changed in 9 days. The snow and ice had improved alot and new snow had filled in the rocks significantly. Conditions won't get much better...

 

Gear Notes:

Tools and poons, 3-4 pickets, couple of screws, few cams and a few nuts.

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Looks awesome. Is that picture titled "topping out on ice cliff" the shrund a hundred feet or so below you top out on the ridge? If so, that thing scared the living shit out of me going over it w/o a rope. My pathetic vertical wallow up and over it somehow worked without the thing collapsing. I yelled up for a rope immediately after that. O_O

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We were the team of 3, Argus, myself and MadeInMontana. It was a great route. Nice to see you guys up there.

 

Good job to team three. That would be a lot to get done in a day.

good to know we had a cc party on stuart. me, matt cook and my friend david were team 3. GREAT day in the mountains - the route was in such good and fun conditions. I never realized how much of a bitch descending sherpa is - could be that we were just really tired. But then again I fell in a crevasse...

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um on the lower part of sherpa. you know where that exposed rock was right before the slope dropped off a bunch? right in there. Only my legs punched through and matt pulled me out. good stuff. maybe i'll post a tr and talk about the ice and avalanches rained down on us. ha

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I have a question. I've recently done my first ascent using Ulrich's up and then descended the False Summit down to the SE Couloir. I found the transition off the FS to be pretty steep and exposed in warm and soft conditions a couple weeks ago. My question is how do you traverse over to Sherpa Peak from the true summit to descend on it's glacier? Do I have to traverse the steep,slabby face with or without a snow cover, similar to what I did downclimbing to the SE? I guess I'm wondering, since I haven't seen any comments about the T. Summit to Sherpa traverse, is there a simple, less exposed route over to Sherpa to make the descent on Sherpa Glacier after coming up one of the North Face routes?

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Nice TR. I have yet to climb this route and I've heard just about every description about this route. One thing I do know is that the snow this weekend was absolutely perfect in the area. I was over on Argonaut sitting on my ass belaying and I saw one of the groups of three descending toward Sherpa around noon thirty. It was like alpine television watching you tiny-ass dots scrawling around on the improbable slopes of that mountain. You get to talk to any of others?

 

One of those groups of three was a Boealps group who are friends of mine. I heard they had just as good of a time up there as you guys did. Perfect styrofoam for kicking steps. Too bad I left my board at home. Argonaut's descent was shreddable about 2 weeks ago.

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Some pics from madeInMontana

 

IceCliffIceCliff.jpg

The Ice Cliff on Saturday

 

IceCliff3.jpg

Fenderfour and Argus in the morning

 

IceCliffSteep.jpg

MadeInMontana leading

 

IceCliffIceclimb.jpg

In the icefall

 

IceCliff1.jpg

Steep

 

IceCliffTwotools.jpg

MadeInMontana (Blue Helmet) and Argus

 

IceCliff2.jpg

Topping out on the ridge

 

IceClifftothesummit.jpg

The way to the summit

 

I managed to fall on my crampons and break both extender bars just before the descent. Good times...

 

I had to rappel some of the steeper bits. I totally n00bed it up.

 

IceCliffRap.jpg

The Descent

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Sherpa glacier was cake. The schrund had a few ways around, at least one should still be good.

 

I looked through the pics and couldn't find anything that showed the Arete. Based on what the pillar looked like, I would say there is some snow, but it woud be feasible as a rock climb.

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