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Stuart's complete N Ridge in Winter


Marko

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Thanks for the compliments, guys. It was a fantastic climb, and even with the awesome weather and conditions it still really worked us to pull it off.

 

Here's a basic trip report - I'll write more when I have some more time to think (I'm way behind in all my classes now).

 

Sat - Left the car at around 6:00 I think, and hiked all the way to the bivy boulder in around 6.5 hours, because we had a packed trail. Ran into NOLSE and crew who had just come down from the Ice Cliff Glacier.

 

Sun - Slept in, and then fixed the first three pitches with two ropes.

 

Mon - Left the base at 6:00 am, and began jugging the ropes. We chucked one of the ropes after jugging it, and we also left one of our sleeping bags at the base. We made much better time on the lower ridge than we had back in December, and arrived at the notch just as it got dark. We kicked out a small platform for the tent (BD Firstlight), and shared the sleeping bag that night, with a special "V" of nylon Mark had sewed up to be zipped into the bag. This system worked really well - it is obviously light, but quite warm as well.

 

Tue - We slept through our alarm, and didn't leave the notch until 7:30. We made good time on most of it, and arrived at the base of the gendarme at around 12:45. The first pitch of the gendarme was straight-forward aid climbing, but still time consuming of course. The second pitch took a long time (finished leading right as it got dark), and was quite challenging because are biggest cam was a #3 camalot and more significantly because most of the cracks were totally choked with ice. The second jugged with two packs on the gendarme pitches so that the leader could climb without one. The remaining 4 pitches went fast, except for the '5.8 crack' which was also time-consuming aid. We finally topped out at around 11:15 pm, and began the descent down the Sherpa Glacier, which was straightforward. We pitched the tent town in the boulders, and Mark starting melting water and making dinner while I hiked back up to the base to get our rope and sleeping bag. We didn't get to sleep until around 3am and then slept in until about 10:30.

 

Wed - Hiked out in the sun.

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