[TR] mt Stuart- ice cliff glacier 5/6/2004

[genepires]

Climb: mt Stuart-ice cliff glacier

 

Date of Climb: 5/6/2004

 

Trip Report:

My first TR!

 

So Stuart (aka Minus) and I hiked in this wednesday on a late start (1:30 pm). We had very little snow till the colchuck/ stuart lake intersection. Then mostly snow covered trail after. There is a fairly descent bootpack off the main trail going toward mtneer creek. The creek crossing is on a old flexing log which we shimmied over. There are lots of little crampon nicks in it which is probably the better idea. The boot pack winds around a lot but will get you the camping area below sherpa peak. Time = 4 hours which is pretty good for me.

 

There was this other team of two from ouray who did the ice cliff that day and was enjoying the afternoon sun by napping and drying out their boots. They left later to go to colchuck to climb more routes there. They seemed not too interested in doing stuart glacier couliour. Their loss.

 

The alarms were set and went off promptly at 4:30 AM. Some things never change though and we crawled out of the sacks by 5:30 and off to the route by 6. So much for the alpine start. But the night was clear and the snow was rock solid and would be for a while.

 

We made it to the base of the north ridge and talked about how to get around the serac band. Earlier we discussed the idea of passing it on the right. After looking up close at the seracs, we choose the left option. I remember thinking that seracs probably come down once a month or so. The danger of such crossing has been dulled by previous similar crossings with no ill effects.

 

So we get on the other side of the ice cliff and up a couple hundred feet, when I hear this noise in the cliff area. A HUGE serac calves off. Must have been the size of a double wide trailer home. It falls and breaks into thousands of chunks, some the size of a VW bug, sweeping right across were we had walked only 5 minutes ealier. A big wet avalanche-like river of ice chunks flowed soon after. The right side option to bypass the cliff would have been certain death to us. Note to self: stay away from under seracs!

 

The next bit of glacier walking is very mellow but the 'schrund to the upper gulley is very interesting. Growing wider with every day, we were able to pass it on a bridge on the left side. The bridge is a 45 degree slope and only 5 feet thick. Might be there this weekend, but probably not the weekend after. The right side schrund crossing should be there for a while if the left won't go.

 

The upper gulley is longer than appears but offers no real difficulty other than endurance. The upper cornice is passable on the right side in a bucket step ladder. I distinctly remember wishing I had pulled out the rock gear from the bottom of the pack and gotten a proper belay as a fall would have killed both of us. Topping out over the cornice is kinda steep and involved a little akward leg hook over the top with no good step for the left foot. Good axe placements though.

 

Descent is easy but tedious down a boot pack to the sherpa gulley/glacier descent. Sherpa glacier schrund is covered.

 

From camp to the car = 3.5 hours. If it took us 4 to get up there, why did it take us so long to get back? Alien abduction?

 

The route should be good for the next month. Usefull beta:

Don't go underneath the seracs

get a good rock anchor for the cornice area

have two straight shafted tools for self belays

 

Would like to say thanks to the ouray guys for kicking in some good steps the day previous.

 

enjoy!

 

 

Gear Notes:

1 screw, 2 tools, crampons,

Could of used rock gear and pickets.

 

Approach Notes:

trail till colchuck/stuart lake intersection. snow the rest of the way.

[John Frieh]

A HUGE serac calves off. Must have been the size of a double wide trailer home. It falls and breaks into thousands of chunks, some the size of a VW bug, sweeping right across were we had walked only 5 minutes ealier.

 

Might want to reconsider that alpine start policy...

 

Good trip report; by chance did you get any photos of girth?

[genepires]

tried to take pictures but the camera didn't work. Dead battery.

 

From what I understand, there is no correlation between time of day and serac fall. Just bad luck and serac fall. But yeah, I need to reevaluate my alpine starts.

[Bronco]

Nice TR Gene! Calving seracs on route suck!

[ivan]

after spending a few nights at cascade pass i gotta agree that seracs seem to fall whenever they feel

[JoshK]

I spent a night at upper lyman lake about 100 feet away from the the lyman glacier where it calves into the lake.

 

All fuckin night it sounded like I was sleeping somewhere in bosnia. I swear every 5 minutes something broke off. The next day (which was warm) I didn't see a single thing fall.