[TR] Mt Stuart- South Face Coulior 5/1/2004

[redneck_rocker]

Climb: Mt Stuart-South Face Coulior

 

Date of Climb: 5/1/2004

 

Trip Report:

My roomate and I decided late friday night to make an attempt on Stuart, Saturday morning we drove from Eugene up to Washington. We made it as far up the Teanaway river road by 5 p.m. Saturday. After a brief nap and some dinner we were off at 7:00 p.m. Snow blocked the road and we had to park about 2.5 miles from the trailhead to Ingalls Pass. We considered trying the N Ridge but instead decided to try one of the bands of Coulior's on the S Face. Which one?? I have no idea but we got good visual beta on the approach and could see that it topped out. We decended from Ingalls pass and then started up a wide coulior on the face. The moon was really bright and tavel was easy up the first part of the climb. At about 3:30 a.m we were about 500-1000 vertical feet from the summit and then cloud started rolling in. They were very thick and quickly closed in the top of the peak. We went from perfect visibility to poor in a few minutes time. Now we can no longer see the summit point and have no idea if the maze of tiny couliors at the top are leading us to the summit or a dead end. the top of the route included some 4th and 5th class rock scrambling around large holes the streams of water were creating underneath the snow. After burning about an hour of running from one side of the gully we traverse one cuolior to the east and finally see a set of tracks going up. We still have very poor visibility and decide to follow the tracks, assuming the previous party could actually see where they were going. We topped out after another 500 vertical feet after scrambling on ice covered rock. Based on a bearing we took from the top the route we ascended we just about due south from the summint block. We still have horrible visiblity and trusted the tracks leading off the top were leading to the cascadian coulior. We made it to the coulior and glissaded the entire thing. Whoo hoo was that fun. In about 20 minutes time we were all the way to the bottom and sitting in the sun. After a quick break we ascended up to stuart pass and back down to the Teanaway. We were back at the car by 12:30 p.m. and proceeded to drive all the way back to Eugene. It was a hard push but definately worth it. We had crampons and rock gear we never used. We each had an ice tool we used extensively on the steeps and ice covered rock at the top. It was assuring having the rock gear due to not knowing if the coulior we were ascending was a dead end.