[TR] Mt. Stuart- Ice Cliff Glacier 6/6/2004

[Bug]

Fun TR.

[Chad_A]

Well, here it is. I intended to write up a TR, and thank Oly for going ahead and doing it, because it took on kind of a "project" feel, and I ended up writing it to send to family and friends, who don't hear about my climbing endeavors that much.

 

Oly was pretty gentle with me and my "falling" episodes on the way in (I still don't know what was up with me, but hey, I'm new to bushwhacking, and everyone can have a bad day). SO, enjoy. I don't care if anyone flames; it'll only serve to entertain me. It's long, so grab your favorite and read on.

 

Edit: It didn't copy and paste well, so I entered the word document to click on. See the attachment.

361954-Stuart.doc

[ken4ord]

Here you go:

 

 

It all started out, innocently enough, like any other climbing trip. Once again, due to the weather, our main objective was out of the question, which was to be Liberty Ridge. Seeking out a technical and challenging worthy alternative, Stewart and I chose the Ice Cliff Glacier route on Mount Stuart. Relatively close, aesthetically pleasing, and east of the brunt of Cascade weather, Stuart is a common objective for aspiring alpine climbers, such as myself, offering a plethora of differing routes.

After discussing who would bring specific bits of group gear the day before, I loaded my pack, put the extras in the military duffel, and checked the weather one last time. Sunday and Monday (the 6th and 7th) would be the days with the lowest freezing levels. Loaded on caffeine, I said goodbye to my girlfriend, with my peace Crane in hand (Megan sends me on my way, each trip, with an origami Crane, that represents peace…a symbol that helps me maintain focus in stressful events), and headed off into the rain, on my way to Renton to meet Stewart.

On the way, the coffee had its usual effect; I had to stop at a rest area just south of Seattle on the I-5. I grabbed more free java at the volunteer stand, and passed a gentleman, obviously of religious orientation, handing out pamphlets. “Would you like something to read on the road?” he asked. “No thanks”, and kept walking. On the way out of the parking lot, I was slowly cruising on my way to the entrance ramp, when the same gentleman walked out in front of me, without looking both ways. A part of me felt like he had a little too much faith, if you know what I mean. The other part of me felt like a jackass; even though I drove around him safely, I thought that it’d been better to slam on the brakes. It didn’t feel good to start the trip out this way.

After finding Stewart’s grandmother’s house, we collected the gear, and threw it in the back of his tan Subaru wagon. It has lots of character, from multiple climbing trips. Just before leaving, his grandmother, a devout Catholic, stopped and blessed us to keep us from harm, and to keep our belongings from being stolen from the car while it was to be parked at the trailhead. Historically, I’m not a very religious person of any orientation, but after the small event at the rest area, I thought, “well, it couldn’t hurt.” I tried to put it out of my mind, now on our way to gather supplies at the local Safeway grocery. We drove to Leavenworth under cloudy skies.

At the trailhead, we sorted group gear, changed into our climbing clothes, and headed up the Stuart Lake trail for about three and a half miles. Coming out of the forest, and into the first meadow clearing, the view was stunning. The Stuart range right in front of us, in its entire jagged splendor. We snapped some pictures, and continued on the trail to where the first switchback occurs. Then the fun began.

Clambering about on a barely visible trail, up and around windfalls and stumps, we crossed the west fork of the Mountaineer Creek, and continued across the landside until we gained a knoll, which at the crest of, we continued toward a big rocky ridge. Following occasional rock cairns and branches with ribbon, the crest of the ridge high above us got closer, we discovered the talus and boulder fields we were to traverse (to gain the high valley, the base of the glacier, and of course, our campsite.) Fighting through slide alder, up loose soil, and around car-sized boulders became the drudgery of the afternoon, as we made our way to the 5400-foot-high campsite, not too far from the base of the Ice Cliff Glacier, proper. Once, while trying to slide off a boulder onto another lower boulder, the bottom of the pack caught on the boulder I was sliding from in mid-air, and launched me headfirst toward a boulder. A bit shaken, and a few curse words later, I pulled myself out of the hole I had fallen into, was on my feet, and on my way.

Only a little later, I was trying to make my way past another car-sized boulder in front of me; either way up or down, would lead to a way around it. Stewart chose wisely, and down climbed. I chose the upward path, up a dirt patch, through some alder and small trees, and up a sloping granite slab. I saw him make it to the top of the slab, and I was almost there as well (in fact, my hands were on the top of it), when the rock that my foot was on turned out to be unattached to the slab, pulled out, and sent me rocketing down the slope of which I had just climbed. I don’t remember much, except for the sudden fall, and the spinning world one sees while somersaulting.

When I finally stopped about 40 feet below where I had fallen, a rock lay at my side (probably the one that gave way), and a trail of gear was strewn above me. The rope, a couple bags of food, my glasses (which miraculously survived intact), and my pride were bashed about. My hands hurt; when I looked down, I saw a silver-dollar sized gouge out of my right wrist, another good series of scratches on my left wrist, and multiple cuts on my palms. The fingernails on my right index finger and left thumb had somehow become partially detached from their nail beds, and were bleeding from underneath, probably from grasping at the rock to stop the fall. After I saw that my head stopped about three feet short from crashing into a large chunk of granite, I started to shake, and for the first time in a really long while, tears welled up. “Fuck, what’s wrong with me?!” I assured Stewart that I wasn’t usually this much of a klutz on an approach; he simply indicated that he was happy that I didn’t have a head injury. So was I. We gathered the goods, found my glasses, and as I stood up, realized that my long johns now had two gaping holes in the left leg, and my watch face was scratched. “Great.”

The next hour was filled with the feeling of falling, and the world tumbling about, and I don’t think that I trusted a single handhold or foothold for the rest of the approach. Upon reaching the campsite in the valley, at the bottom edge of the boulders, I felt the tension in my body give way to mental exhaustion. Stewart set up his tent, and I had the stove blazing before long; we were settled in rather quickly, and as we grew comfortable, a gentle rain began to fall. We caught a glimpse of the bottom of the route; a moderate glacier, with a slab of exposed granite, and above it, a sheer wall of a vertical icefall. “Shit, we’re going to climb that?” Hot Ramen noodles never tasted so good. Finished off with a dessert of Panda black licorice, the only thing left that I longed for were a warm bed, a cold beer, and my girlfriend. I still couldn’t shake the ominous “Mount Stuart hates me” feeling that I had about the whole trip. I resolved to see how I felt in the morning, and to let the negative thoughts roll off of my shoulders. I needed to have a clean slate for the next day, if we were to have a successful climb. A gentle rain began to fall.

Upon rising at the alpine hour of 4:30 a.m., or so, we realized that the mountain was socked in, it was still raining, and I figured my hands hurt too bad to hold the ice tools with any reasonable amount of grip; it hurt like Hell to simply tie my boots. We retreated once again to the sleeping bags, and awoke to brightening skies at about 8:30. Blue patches shone through the gray clouds above, and the mountain was more in view than we’d previously seen. “Why don’t we pack some stuff and check out the route?” “Sure, yeah, I’d be up for that.” Soon, we were quiet, involved with packing some gear to take up with, to scope out the route, up close. “Well, if we’re going to do that, then should we just go ahead and take the gear up, just in case we decide to climb it?” “Yeah, I don’t see why not.” Before we knew it, we were on our way up the valley, bushwhacking through the remains of the forest, trudging through the bog, and navigating through more boulders to gain the crest of the glacier moraine. This was at about 10:30.

We noted to ourselves that there were two ways to tackle the icefall, per the guidebook. The way up the right side involves a 5.8 slab that leads around to the top of the icefall, and then, there’s the left side. There, we could see a series of ramps and snow bridges that looked to provide access to the top of the icefall, and glacier that lie above. Stewart and I roped up, sorted gear, and were finally on our way. The snow was not of post-holing nature, as we’d suspected. Easy to kick steps into, but not soft enough to ball up on the crampons, Stewart broke trail, and I followed up and through the icefall. A couple of steep ice steps, and an ice screw for a running belay gained us the top of the icefall. Good fun. Stewart led it in good style, using his alpine second tool, with his standard mountain axe. Strangely enough, I still couldn’t shake the memory of falling, and was happy to be following, even with the two technical tools that I’d brought.

“Man, you have to lead something”, Stewart added. “I do?” Honestly, I didn’t feel like it. I was just happy to be climbing at that point. I don’t know, even now, if my legs were really feeling that wobbly, or if I just didn’t trust them, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t feel good about the whole thing, regardless of the obvious lack of ice and rock fall, and the surprisingly good snow conditions. Finally, after he finally coerced me into it, I took the lead, across a narrow, but stable, snow bridge. I nailed in a picket as far as I could. “Here goes.” Walked across without a problem. On the other side, and above, I dug in, set a quick hip belay, and Stewart was across without a second thought. Repeated steps one to three to get above the next slot, and then we were on our way toward the couloir.

The wobbliness of my legs seemed to wane a bit, and I resumed a usual rhythm of step-step, plunge-plunge. We made reasonable time to the base of the right gully, and I traversed under the cornice to climb directly up to it, on some icy steep snow. I felt confident in the footing, so I didn’t mention unroping. Stewart had the rock gear (oops), so I couldn’t very well think about some gear to put in. I climbed up to the ramp that lead up the right side of the cornice, and as I got higher, the footing got worse.

“Man, this sucks. The snow is really shallow here, over the rock.” I don’t remember Stewart’s response, but I looked over, and saw a horn of rock protruding up. “Better than nothing”, I thought, and lassoed it with a spectra sling and clipped the rope to it. Turning my attention upward, I struggled to find a way over the cornice. It was very strange…I had a very flat, matter-of-fact thought come through my mind. “I could fall here”. Not a thought of panic, just a thought. I figured it was time to make a decision, and just be done with it. Since the footing had just gotten worse by me trying to find a solid bit of snow to kick into (there was none), I plunged my tool shafts in above the cornice as high and deep as I could get them, and walked my feet out onto the vertical face of the cornice. “Here goes”, I thought to myself, got my feet up as high as they could be, threw my right one up on top of the cornice, and belly-flopped over. Probably the most ungraceful move I’ve ever done, but I was elated nevertheless, to have finished it off. “WOOOOHOOOO”, I shouted, plunged the tools in, equalized a sling to them both with a figure eight, and belayed Stewart up with my ATC. He did the move over the cornice much, much easier than I did.

Sitting on the ridge, we basked in the sun, while being windblown a bit. I could see that a weather front was moving in from the southwest, but it didn’t look too brutal; I could, however, see the sun shining through some form of precipitation falling in the distance. The route to that point was fun and satisfying; with the weather coming, I wouldn’t have minded getting down from there, but Stewart, the ambitious one, quickly banished those thoughts with a simple idea: getting to the summit.

We started up along the slope of the ridge, and turned right, I believe, too early. He initially probably had the right idea, to head under, and continue the traverse, under the false summit. Instead, we chose the high route, and by my altimeter, ended up near 9220 feet, or so. The true summit, over 9400 feet high, was a good bit away, and a nasty, rocky ridge-saddle separated us from it. Game over, I thought, as a cloud came in from the weather I had seen, and we never saw the summit again. I was happy to have done the fine route, in and of itself. Stewart wasn’t quite as content as I. “Dammit! That’s the second time!” He told me of a similar occurrence he had on Mt. Constance, with another partner. We took some tongue-in-cheek false-summit pictures, and started to descend. It was then that our glorious Mt. Stuart wasn’t going to let us get away without some sort of a cost.

We started traversing back down the ridge-slope, past the cornice, to get to the descent route, the Sherpa Glacier. Stewart took the traverse-glissade-repeat method to zigzag his way down; I, for the most part, plunge-stepped (damn Schoeller fabric; still ended up with a damp ass.) One of the few times that I did glissade, I heard a “thump” behind me, and looked back, only to see nothing. I shrugged it off quickly, as I wanted to get down to camp, and enjoy some hot food. At the col, near the top of the Sherpa Glacier, I realized that my snow picket had somehow unclipped itself from the biner, and was left somewhere behind. The Neutrino was still there, but the picket and the sling that was girth-hitched to it, gone. Hmmm. “Oh, well”, and we started the descent. I had three more at home.

Continuing on with our respective patterns of descent, the bergschrund quickly came up on us, and we skirted it on the left (west) without incident. The tricky part was at the bottom of the glacier, where the underlying granite was completely exposed, and the melt water from the glacier was running over it in many places. Stewart set up a quick belay to let me go down to the slick slabs and scope out a definitive way down. No go. Climbing back up, we considered rappelling down off of some small trees to the side of where we were, but instead chose to climb back up and over a ridge to see if there was another easier walk-down area. I remember Stewart saying, “I thought we were done climbing”, and I agreed whole-heartedly. Up and around the right side of the ridge (to the east), we found an easy way down, and soon we were at the boulders at the edge of the valley, near the moraine.

We set down the packs to unrope, and take a quick break, before heading back to camp. “Oh my GOD!” “What?” Stewart asked. “My crampons are gone. Fuck!” I had strapped them on tightly at the false summit, and somewhere on the descent, between the plunge stepping and the glissading, they had worked themselves loose, and out of the straps. “Dammit, That’s my favorite piece of gear.” Strangely enough, I was numb to the whole issue, for the most part. I’m not a gear-hound, that places HUGE value on my possessions, but like anyone else that has been through lots of experiences with something, anything, sometimes it feels like a friend was lost. “I’m too tired to go back up there now. I’ll head back up tomorrow and look. You wanna come back up with me tomorrow and help?” “Uh, not really.” Stewart added. I chuckled…I didn’t blame him a bit. An ice screw had strangely unclipped itself from his pack, as well.

The way back to camp went easy, and we chatted along the way; the stove and cigars were lit promptly after arriving at camp. Mmmm, mmmm. More Ramen, with tuna mixed in, finished off with some dessert black licorice. Only on a camping trip, but damn, it really did taste good. The decision was made to let the weather dictate whether we were to leave the next day, or not. Of course, the crampons were still in the forefront of my mind; I knew that they couldn’t be that high up on the descent. I had to find them. I had to. Too many climbing trips in front of me, and not enough money to replace them. I’d get up early, and go look. Yeah, that’s what I’d do. No sweat.

Sure enough, I was wide-awake by 5 a.m. Crawled out of the bag at 5:30, into the damp air. It was quite calm and serene. No sound, but the birds chirping, and the meditative sounds of the melt water running off the ridge, that formed the small stream running by the campsite. By this time, I was looking forward to a bit of “me” time, after spending 48 hours straight with a person. I’m sure he felt the same way; it’s just a part of me that’s natural. Stewart offered me the use of his daypack, but I declined, after I looked at the sky; I wanted to take a spare jacket and some food and water with me, anyway, for a potentially long search. After loading up, I started back through the forest, through the bog, and back up to the boulders.

I began to move a bit quicker when I saw some dark clouds heading our way, up the valley. Occasionally, I would post-hole to my knee, but the snow was surprisingly consolidated. I cut a traversing ascent across the boulder-field, until I found our tracks from the night before, and then turned directly upward. I was looking around, at the beautiful blue-gray-black clouds moving, wandering up the glissade track from Stewart’s bum, and then, there they were, right in front of me. I couldn’t believe my eyes. I screamed out in relief “WWWWOOOOOOO!!” I laughed, and jumped up and down in joy, and still couldn’t believe my eyes. “It can’t be this easy”, I told myself. I took note of where I was at, and I was WAY below where I’d found that they were lost off my pack. Evidently, they had found the glissade track, and slid down the length of the ridge, at which the top of, they must’ve slid from under the lashing straps of the pack. I had to take a picture of them, I was so happy, and then the snow started. Not an evil, blowing cold snow, but a Styrofoam-rice style of snow, that fell gently, almost like people throwing rice in a ticker-tape parade. I picked up the crampons, lashed them back on the pack, tighter than necessary (really tight), and headed back to camp, unable to wipe the shit-eating grin off my face.

Upon return to camp, I told Stewart of the find, and he couldn’t believe it either. I crawled back in the sack for a few more hours, and awoke in time for it to be starting to dry; we decided to pack it out. Camp was broken down, and we were on our way, and I’m not embarrassed to say that I wore my helmet on the way out, through the boulder field. It went much better on the way out (though Stewart definitely is much better at bushwhacking then I am), and relatively soon, we were back at the Subaru, where we found that mice had paid us a visit. Nothing mattered, though, as we were both glad to have the boots off, and to be on our way to the Duck-N-Drake for beer, and food (more importantly, for the beer).

In closing, I didn’t expect this trip to be so mentally challenging. I have yet to get into the true North Cascades, as Alpine Climbing has just truly blossomed for me, so the term “bushwhacking” is truly new to me. I’m used to grunting up a glacier, from the parking lot, up a big volcano of some sort. I see now that there is much to be gained from doing smaller, but more technical climbs, and I will seek them out more. I’m sure my first devil’s club outing will be a gem for sure. At any rate, I had a great time, and the fact that I felt like writing up an essay about the event must mean that it was a memorable experience for me, and I’ve done my best to reflect my partner’s feelings (without speaking too much for him), from what I’ve observed. He’s a fine gent, and I’ll look forward to climbing with him again, assuming he puts up with me. The experience was great, and I, as always, learned a lot; if what they say is true about “what doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger”, then I’m a monster, literally. I have scabs up and down my arms, and I’m walking like Frankenstein. Anyone have a good spare left knee lying around that I can use?

[russ]

Great TR - you must have earned some karma points somewhere that led to your finding the crampons so easily!

[slothrop]

Nice TR. This kind of stuff is much better than the usual reticent hardman chestbeating.

[Dru]

I’m used to grunting up a glacier, from the parking lot, up a big volcano of some sort. I see now that there is much to be gained from doing smaller, but more technical climbs, and I will seek them out more

 

sssshhhh don't tell everyone!

[AllYouCanEat]

Nice TR. This kind of stuff is much better than the usual reticent hardman chestbeating.

 

I like to see any TR's, even the chestbeating ones. Hell, I imagine I'm guilty of the occasional chestbeat here and there, even though I try not too. Lately a lot more TR's are being posted on CC.com and it's great to see a cross section of what people are getting out there and doing.

 

Guilty of hijacking your tr twice. Sorry, good TR.

[slothrop]

Yeah, man. I like to read 'em all, but especially from people who aren't afraid to add a little personal flavor.

 

Every TR is chestbeating, but some are more cheastbeaty than others.

[Dru]

i'm don't think I could call anything in this essay chestbeating. what are you seeing that i don't

[Chad_A]

Thanks for the kind words.

Honestly, felt it on the too "mushy" side after writing it, but chose to leave it alone, as it was obviously what I was feeling at the time.

 

Thanks, ken4ord, for doing that. For some reason, when I tried, a whole bunch of weird characters and random numbers popped up when I posted it. Strange.

[slothrop]

i'm don't think I could call anything in this essay chestbeating. what are you seeing that i don't

 

When you post a TR, you're saying "Looky here, I climbed this route." I'm not frowning on the idea of sharing TRs (I love reading and writing them), but there is a faction out there that refuses to share climbing stories with strangers because they are all reticent hardman 'n shit. Or truly modest, whatever.

 

Keep them TRs comin'.

[Dru]

Chestbeating is not posting a TR. Chestbeating is posting a TR stating your sponsor's name, saying how good their gear was, what your new round trip speed record was and how good this will look on your 3-page Excel spreadsheet file climbing resume. Or a TR about how you just happened to be there gaping while Joe Hardman climbed Sick Dude Route (5.13x) and how he personally thanked you for holding his dog's leash while his girlfriend belayed him.

[JoshK]

Chestbeating is not posting a TR. Chestbeating is posting a TR stating your sponsor's name, saying how good their gear was, what your new round trip speed record was and how good this will look on your 3-page Excel spreadsheet file climbing resume. Or a TR about how you just happened to be there gaping while Joe Hardman climbed Sick Dude Route (5.13x) and how he personally thanked you for holding his dog's leash while his girlfriend belayed him.

 

What about posting TRs of first ascents naming your company and in news release format?

[David_Parker]

That second Tr would be much easier to read if it had indents or a space for the paragraphs.

 

It kinda baffles me that these guys didn't do research on the approach since I know it has been posted multiple times on this web site. Anyone who takes the boulder field is obviously lost and why they would go back the same way is even funnier. The lovely path through the forest next to the stream is much better imo!

 

Good job though and congrats!

[Juan]

Man, does that look different than two years ago, one week later in June. But I'm sure there's nothing to this global warming bullshit. W will lead us through.

 

Sharp

[DPS]

It kinda baffles me that these guys didn't do research on the approach since I know it has been posted multiple times on this web site. Anyone who takes the boulder field is obviously lost and why they would go back the same way is even funnier. The lovely path through the forest next to the stream is much better imo!

 

 

Even thought I have been back in that way a half dozen times, I still wind up in the boulder field on the way in every time.

[Juan]

The first time I went in there it was rocks on the way in, below the rocks but in thick trees on the way out. Second time it was below the rocks both ways and much easier. If you keep the rocks in view through the trees and pay attention at the head of the valley, all will be well. There is flagging at the head of the valley.

 

As for you Dan, I'm beginning to wonder, what with the N. Face of Shuksan thing and all.

 

=;-)

 

Sharp

[Chad_A]

That is essentially what happened; on the way in, we were suckered into following the boulderfield (evidently, according to those who say you don't have to stick to them to gain the upper valley) by cairns and orange flags that were hung on branches along the way.

 

On the way out, we stayed lower longer, and eventually ended up on the boulders because of postholing through snow patches and wading through bog below the boulders. I'd like to try it again someday just to see what the approach is "supposed" to be like.

[Jens]

I've been in there a bunch and still can't decide if I like the boulders or the woods better.