[TR] Stuart- Direct NW Face 8/9/2005

[TeleRoss]

Climb: Stuart-Direct NW Face

 

Date of Climb: 8/9/2005

 

Trip Report:

Sky and I headed out for another long day on Tuesday. I had wanted to do a big day on the Wine Spires, but Sky became enamored with Kearney's line on the NW Face of Mt. Stuart. Sky won out this time and off to Stuart we went.

We left the Stuart Lake TH at 5am and in 1.5hrs were at Stuart shortly after sunrise.

We saw a large buck in the meadows as we were hiking up past the lake towards the large talus gully. I think we missed the faint climbers path and started up towards Horseshoe Lake. We ended up traversing a forested slope and doing a little bushwhacking before popping out in the large talus pile below the gully. There was a nice stream for water and a cool view of Stuart.

Talus and scree and some shrubbery leads up the wide gully to the Stuart Glacier. We easily avoided the broken areas by staying to climbers right and traversed the softening snow on the upper glacier towards the NW Face.

The snow below the face was all broken and nasty with several sketchy looking moats and large hanging snow blocks, so we had to drop down a bit to the left to access the rock. Once off the glacier and on the rock we climbed back up above the moat on some interesting sloping slabs and cracks and eventually got below the first pitch crack.

Sky wanted to give the first pitch a go. It's a beautiful thin hands/finger crack in a small left facing corner.

Sky had a few intimate moments with the crack at the cruxy bulge about mid-pitch that resulted in some nice bloody hands and fingers, bloodied but not beaten he recomposed and cruised past the section on the next go.

I got the funky grassy corner, which was actually a lot of fun, although dirty and somewhat loosish. From the top of the corner several hundred feet of simul-climbing led us up and left. We never saw the 5.8 squeeze that Kerney describes, but instead we found a sweet 5.7 corner that lead up and right to the base of the "long perfect corner" that is the highlight of the route.

I got this pitch and it is pretty sweet. Thin finger laybacks and some stemming in a left facing corner. I ended up climbing a bit too high in the corner cause it was just too much fun, but the thin crack turns into a tight seam, so I had to downclimb a bit to where I could move out left into a right facing corner that leads up to below the slabby area.

Sky got the last hard pitch, following smallish cracks and nice face climbing to the top of the slab and below the broken terrain leading to the summit.

We simuled to the summit and were on top at 4, 11 hrs from the car. We enjoyed a feast on the summit. Smoked sardines and pita bread, an orange and some stuffed marinated olives...yummy.

From the summit we downclimbed the W Ridge a bit and did a couple of raps, before eventually dropping to the north. We did a rap in a gulley before traversing west again. We weren't really all that sure where the NW Buttress descent route goes so we kind of just followed the easiest terrain and eventually found ourselves on a ridge where a scree gully dropped down towards the basin between Stuart and Goat Pass.

We dropped down this gully. Sky kept descending while I tried a high traverse around a couple towers towards Goat Pass. A small ledge led around to the pass, while Sky dropped down around a buttress and then climbed the talus back up to Goat Pass.

From the pass it is easy moraine and talus to below the glacier and back to the gully that drops down into the meadows near Stuart Lake.

We found the climbers path at the end of the talus and hit the main trail just as it was getting dark. We trudged down the trail and made the parking lot at 10:30...phew!

We munched on canned pineapple...sooo good! before hauling ass back to L-town for burgers and beer at Duck and Drakes.

 

 

Gear Notes:

cams to 4" with extras in the smallish end. Set of nuts, and a couple hexes.

 

Approach Notes:

Stuart Lake Trail

[marcus]

Outstanding gents!

[pms]

anyone sleepy afterwards?

[pms]

Burgundy - Chianti tomorrow? Dig that sweet rock in yor pics.

[TeleRoss]

I think we may have lucked out on our choice because it looked like there were some nasty thunderstorms up north.

Tomorrow? Right...

All I'm doing is and

[bonathanjarrett]

I am headed up to do the complete North Ridge next week. Could you post on the conditions of Stuart glacier: crampons needed? ice ax?

How was the descend via the west ridge?

[Juan]

You're both continuing to embarrass the aging couch potato set, of which I am one. Please find another mountain range to pick on.

 

=;-)

[skykilo]

If you do the Complete North Ridge you can avoid all snow travel. I would ditch both the ax and the 'poons, as long as you don't plan to descend Sherpa.

 

It sure was hard dragging my ass outta bed at 6:30 this morning to make that German Chocolate Cake for Barb!

 

Thanks for another great day Ross! No pictures with blood???

Edited August 10, 2005 by skykilo

[gyselinck]

Sweet lookin climb.

 

Of course anything can be done, so you could get down the sherpa, but I dont think it would be a wise nor pratical choice of descent, in my opinion.

[layton]

Sweet!

You guys are gettin' after it! Do you live 'roudn WorthLeaven or somethin'?

Eric(MisterE) and I met you guys at the TH last year just after Der Dihedral I'm pretty sure. you guys were up on the W ridge of CBR.

[John Frieh]

So does the first pitch still feel like 5.10+? I heard from someone that the melting out of the glacier has resulted in it being a little harder...

 

Great work guys!

[TeleRoss]

Yeah for the N Ridge, no crampons or axe are needed as you can stay on moraine the whole way.

The descent down the W Ridge is interesting and time consuming. We pretty much stayed on the crest and bypassed a bunch of small towers. Once past a group of towers on a level stretch of ridge we dropped to the north and then kind of trended down and to the west, until we moved back over the lower part of the ridge and onto the slope leading down between stuart and goat passes.

Its definitely not the most direct way, and I think there is a better route, if you search around on this site I think someone may have a better description.

 

Mike- I don't think we've met, as I've never been on CBR. I live in Seattle, I just like to drive around a lot in the middle of the night

[TeleRoss]

I think we started the first pitch from the original spot. It involved a bit of bullshit to get up to that point though. The glacier is melting but there was a whole bunch of broken, big ass snow blocks perched all over the place with enormous moats.

Anyway, I thought the first pitch was more like 10- although Sky might have a differing opinion

[skykilo]

Fawk the numbers. I'm not really qualified to grade anything anyway.

 

All I know is it was funky fingers, thin feet in a few spots, and BEAUTIFUL granite.

 

It was actually spicier following Ross' lead to the base of the first pitch, looking at a nice 30' pendulum into the moat. It wasn't his fault though; there just wasn't any pro.

[pms]

Might as well bust out the wheel chair Mr. Juan, sit back and enjoy the show.

[Kyle_Flick]

Mike, you met Telemarker (John Plotz), Steve Tift and I at the trailhead after our respective climbs.

[layton]

oh sorry! i knew it was something to do with tele.

[Juan]

I have a wheelchair, but would like one in titanium. Can you help me out, Jim?

 

John

[lunger]

nice work fellas!

 

specialed and i climbed this route a week ago wednesday--exact same car-car time, but from Teanaway side. i suppose longer distance from that side (?) offset by comparatively straightforward descent.

 

we enjoyed the route! after some glacier/moat shenanigans, we went up a corner which had an adjacent fixed line. we stacked the rope on a ledge--did you see that? the ledge was directly above two staggered L-facing corners. from your pic, it appears we did not climb the same first rock pitch as you guys. how far left of Stuart Glacier Couliour did you start?

 

i wonder how much the route had been climbed previous to our parties; special led a mossy corner p. 2 and sent down a rain of mung. i drew that sweet corner mid-height, and excavated some placements, which you probably noticed. ross, i too climbed too high in the corner, then traversed an undercling to the r-facing on the left, recommended fun.

 

special has some pics from that route that he might find time to post, but we just returned from Bear Mtn last night, and generally feel like jello.

[specialed]

Booty call from NW Face of Stuart:

 

-3 nice 'biners

-1 purple metolius 3-cam unit

-3 mid-size nuts in good shape

-1 small hex

-1 old ass goretex jacket we threw into the void

-2 shitty biners we threw into the void

-one fixed rope we left on a ledge

-shit ton of tat.

 

Clean up after yourselves people. Our "light alpine rack" was severely compromised after picking up your fucking trash.

[skykilo]

HOLY SHIT! I wish we'd climbed it a week earlier. I like booty. We didn't find anything on the route.

 

Descending the W Ridge and NW Butt we found a nut, an ATC, and several brand-new rap slings just laying on the ground.

[specialed]

That reminds me. We found an ATC too.

 

How was that descent of the W Ridge? We wanted to go in from Mountaineers Crk. but didn't think there'd be a good way back down that side. You guys went up via Stuart Lake? I think the bushwack via upper Mountaineers Creek may even be quicker if you know where you're going.

[skykilo]

We talked about that bushwhack and decided against it; I left it to Ross' judgement on that one.

 

Stuart Lake was great for the approach. The descent was really time-consuming, but that was mostly because we didn't know where we would drop to the north. Go around all those towers low until you get to the flatter portion of the ridge and it wouldn't be that bad. Right after going around the 3rd or 4th tower on the West Ridge, drop where the ridge flattens. Teanaway may very well be easier all told. Hard to say.

[MCash]

The mountie creek approach follows a climbers path all the way into the basin below the Ice Cliff, no bushwacking required.

[skykilo]

Maybe not for you stud. I lose real trails with the regularity of a caffeine-overdosing vegan.