[TR] Stuart - W Ridge 8/22/2015

[waterproof]

Trip: Stuart - W Ridge in a Day

 

Date: 8/22/2015

 

Trip Report:

C2C in 13.5hrs on a smoky day as a party of 2. The smoke seemed to stop at around 8,000ft so we had great views from the top. The colors and smoke down low were also pretty special. And now all my gear smells like smoke.

 

car: 4AM

longs pass trail junction: 4:40AM

 

Good morning Stuart! The smoke had settled overnight and didn't roll in till about 7AM

 

Lake Ingalls: 6AM

 

Going East around Lake Ingalls is very doable; Just before a bulge blocks your path, you scramble onto a very convenient ledge system and take that across the rock.

 

Lake Ingalls North end water stop: 6:20-6:40

Bottom of Gully: 7:40

Top of Gully: 8:30 (no need to climb steep chimney on the right like we did; you could probably just go another 50ft up the gully and walk over)

LJT notch: 9:15

 

In this section we didn't manage to follow the beta and find the tunnel underfoot. Instead we ascended about 100' up the second gully and found some cairns, following those over to the next gully. At this point we figured we were too low (cursed cairns!) and found a good place to climb some low 5th class back up a ways (past some rap slings ), through a tunnel, and then traverse right across a wide sloping slab and up to the next gully, where we were back on route before God's Cairn.

Wide slabs. Small ice patches still existed on far left.

 

Gully leading up to WR Notch

 

WR Notch: 10AM

 

Summit: 12:00PM-12:30PM

Summit Register

 

On the way down, we followed Craig Weiland's GPS Track (students.washington.edu/climb/forum/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=6510) down the Cascadian Cutoff, and then found a trail cutting /that/ off and heading more directly towards the stream crossing.

Not sure I would recommend this - it did immediately get us off of the scree and onto decent trail, but there were several splits and dead-ends on cross-trails where it wasn't clear whether we wanted to go right or left. There were also steep sections causing erosion of the forest duff (not that the whole Cascadian isn't an erosion machine...). Fun adventure though, and it did eventually get us onto the main trail close to the stream crossing.

 

Stream: 3:30PM

Looking back at Stuart through the smoke

Long's Pass: 4:30PM

Cars: 5:30PM

 

GPS Track on Peakbagger

 

Gear Notes:

60m 8.9mm rope, small rack (3 cams up to .75, half set of nuts)

Edited August 23, 2015 by waterproof