Climb: Mount Stuart-NE Face (Attempt)

Date of Climb: 2/18/2006

Trip Report:
Met Suckbm at Starbucks in Seattle in my brand new Subaru. I showed up an hour late. We were both way hung-over from the night before. I then bought my capachino grande and we drove to mountaineers creek. I then realized I forgot my crampons so we drove back to L-worth so I could buy new ones. We wanted to save time, since we were already late, so we spent 2 hours trying to drive up the mountaineers creek road in our new Subaru, even though it only takes an hour and a half to walk. We hiked to the base of Stuart. That night we got drunk off our asses in the tent. Then we slept in past our alarm clocks.

Actually, none of that shit happened...But we did try to climb the NE Face of Stuart. Once again, for the second year in a row, I found myself punching tracks into Stuart. We put in a fine trail all the way up the Ice Cliff so now all you Seattleites can drive to L-worth in your Subaru's and do your car-car winter solo's of the complete N. Ridge. Good luck.

The NE Face on Mount Stuart has been a long term project of mine. It's been rarely climbed, probably for good reason. Most of the time due to conditions. About all I have to say is its FUKIN' hard. Ascended the right hand side of the Ice Cliff, way chill. We tried to climb the left hand side of the face. Got three pitches up before bailing. The ice pitches we were climbing were about a half inch thick, interspersed with hard rock moves. I would estimate WI 4, 5.9, X. We left behind 3 pickets, 5 runners, a nut, and a bunch of biners, so have fun booty freaks.

On descent I took a unroped fall into a crevasse, fell approx. 15 feet. We had already raped off the headwall of the glacier and were down climbing steep snow. All the sudden my stomach dropped out from under me and I found myself barrel rolling into blackness. If I had happened to be 10 feet to my right I would have taken a 30+ foot vertical fall straight to the bottom. I consider this to be my closets call to serious injury in the mountains. Thus if your following our beaten track up the ice cliff, I advise you to be careful.

If anyone has some beta about a time when you did the face, I would love to hear it.

Pictures to follow:

Squeeze in his supposed "2 man" tent, trying to warm the stove to get water to boil. The high temp was 14 degrees during the day, in the sun, not sure what it droped down to in the night.



Erik on the Ice Cliff Glacier. Where he is, is about where I fell into the crevase:



Working around the cracks:



Suckbm leading pitch 1:



Looking down from pitch 2:



Suckbm climbing to the belay on thin ice:



Erik leading pitch 3, preping to do a fuckin' hard rock move. I still can't believe he pulled through that shit:





Gear Notes:
Shoulda had a ladder.

Approach Notes:
Good trail now!

Oh my! Great pics! Crevasse fall didn't actually sound all that sweet. Glad you made it out okay! Did you freak out a bit after you fell in, or were you pretty calm? How did you get out? I'm not looking forward to know what that stomach dropping out feeling is like. Anyway, again, thanks for sharing, I'm glad your okay!
~Nate

Sounds pretty burly. Kudos for not dying!

Impressive!

Great pictures. Good job staying out of the bottom of the crevasse.

I had to climb out stemming the walls, using both tools. The wierd thing was is that I thought we were off of the glacier, out of crevase danger thus the no ropes. When I fell it wasen't scarry, it happend so fast I didn't even have time to react. But after that, when we were descending more, everytime my foot even postholed in deep powder my heart would jump.

Here is a picture showing my tracks leading to the hole where I just punched through:



Here is a picture looking down into the hole. I hit the first ledge in the left of the pic, 10 feet to my right and I would have gone into the black pit:

Holy scary crevasse pictures!

Agree that the slope below the ice cliff doesn't look like glacier...

Maybe it's a randkluft

nice brah!
i'm soooo there next weekend!

Glad to hear you are ok - that is scary shit. I remember scaring myself somewhat on the upper ice cliff as I pulled over a rapidly deteriorating bridge crossing a schrund unroped. Pretty dumb looking back and the same thing just as easily could have happened to me.

-josh

Jesus. Nice effort on the way up, and nice nightmare-fodder on the way down. Glad you are okay.

Wild. Great Pics.

Nice effort - looks like it might be a line for a bit easier conditions.

Craig and I definately found much more rock than snow and ice. Starting up the right side the way nelsons line does looked like pure rock climbing which is why we tried to go up somewhat below the pillar. Next time I try it il wait for more snow and for some one else to kick steps up the ice cliff first.

It sounds like you guys followed Beckey's East Face of the false summit route line for at least the first portion. That is some awesome terrain in winter

Good effort guys! Hopefully someone returns you that gear

You can always go back and get it in summer.

Atleast the rock there is good!

We did two raps below the headwall of the glacier, which could easily be downclimbed. We left one picket here equiped with a sewn runner and biner, then we did one more rap off a v-thread leaving another sewn runner and biner. One ascending the ice cliff now might say why the heck would anyone rap here....My answer, I was so freaking tired I didn't care anymore and it was just easier, faster, and much less stressful.

Pfft, gear is easily replaced, sounds like you made a good call. I watched a friend do a similar elevator shaft routine (though not quite as far down) on the Stuart Glacier, also while descending. Those little pocket glaciers can really throw you a curve ball just when you think things are all over. I'm glad you made it out to post this great TR, I find the reports on attempts as interesting as the succesful ones.

nice TR, g.