[TR] Ingalls North Peak- South Ridge 7/14/2004

[Picketeer]

Climb: Ingalls North Peak-South Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 7/14/2004

 

Trip Report:

Packed in from the Teanaway Road trailhead to one of great campsites on the slabs below Ingalls Pass on Monday, 7/12 afternoon. Fantastic view of Mt Stuart and of upper meadows of Headlight Creek from camp. Planned to climb on the 7/13. But thunderstorms dissuaded us from leaving camp in the morning. Showered intermittently throughout the morning of 7/13. Cleared off in the afternoon and we set off for Ingalls Lake for a quick reconnoiter. Still continuous snow around the lake. The slabs leading up to the gully descending from the S. Peak-N. Peak col are mostly snow-free, still plenty of snow in the upper gully.

Met a couple of guys taking a break at the lake on their way to Mt. Stuart. They said they were planning to climb the North Ridge. My climbing partner Eric wished them luck, having done the climb twenty-five years ago, recalling for the captive audience tales of his bivouac on the summit with no water and food and arduous descent down Cascadian and then back over Goat Pass to make it back to his camp and food. The North Ridge climbers-to-be casually took this in. One of them mentioned he had previously climbed the North Ridge four times. We wished them luck.

 

I was stoked to go at first light on Wednesday and surprised Eric by arising and motivating him for a proper "alpine start". The weather was ideal--nearly cloudless conditions. We got trudging at about 5:30 am.

Made it to the base of the climb beneath the dogtooths at 7:00 am after much fun cruising up the slabs. Snow conditions in the gully were great--just an axe for easy progress up the snow.

 

We climbed on one 60 m 9mm doubled rope. No problems reaching an anchor in any ~ 30 m pitch. There is one very dubious anchor slung around a killer block that can be avoided by climbing up to the next anchor (two beefy Metolius bolts). Cimbed the route in my hikers(hooked my rock shoes to my harness--but never needed them). Eric climbed in his Sketchers (are those like real tennis shoes??)

 

We detected perhaps one 5.6 move (as indicated on the variation shown in Beckey's topo), else rest is easy class 5 or easier. The roped climbing concludes at the top of the dark horns (we did not avail ourselves of the "belay cove" shown in Beckey's topo) and is a quick scramble to the summit (actually two summits, the more eastward has a cairn atop it and is clearly higher than the westward summit). We summited a little after 9:00 am

 

Raps are from good stations. We avoided the manky block anchor by doing a full 60 m rap (with our one and only rope) from the 2nd rap/belay station (1st rap from station atop the dark horns) and doing a short easy downclimb (10-15 ft) to the next station (webbing slung around huge block on large ledge). We put a couple pieces in a convienient crack and belayed down this short downclimb just to be on the safe side. Two ropes would eliminate the need to downclimb or else use the manky block anchor.

From this point to the deck was straight forward two short raps with some class 3 or 4 downclimbing.

 

We saw two more parties nearing the top of the gully after we reached the deck at the start of the climb.

 

A fun climb with great views of Stuart and Lake Ingalls. I was particularly struck by the beauty of the upper Jack Creek drainage. The rock quality is good and route takes a natural line. The exposures of polished serpentine rock along the route (and also coming up from Lake Ingalls to the col) are stunning (and very polished, glad not to have to friction up some of that on sketchy pro!).

 

One question: what is the major mountain massif that one sees to the west (20 miles?) from Ingalls Peak?

Edited July 24, 2004 by Picketeer

[JoshK]

If it's a big snow covered massif, you are probably looking at mount daniel I would think. Other stuff that direction is the middle fork peaks such as summit chief, bears breast, overcoat, etc. which are probably pretty big n' cool looking from there.