nr of stuart

[katie_cryan]

looking for recent beta on north ridge of stuart -going in via ingall's lake/long's pass and out the same way. mainly want to know if the slabby bypass of the gendarme is ice free, etc. and how

obvious the descent via cascadian couloir is now.

[klenke]

Just got back from climbing Cannon Mountain, which is ENE of Mt. Stuart. Had a good look at the North Ridge of Stuart (BEFORE the forest fire smoke fugged everything everywhere). I can't specifically answer your gendarme question but it looked like the glaciers/snowfields were pretty receded. Looks like some slab traversing and/or morainal terrain might be necessary to get to the base of the ridge.

 

As for the Cascadian Couloir, I climbed Stuart via this route way back in Sept. 1993. What I remember is almost going down the wrong couloir (the one next door to the east of Cascadian). I figured out my mistake before I dropped more than 100 vertical. Basically, once you come over the false east summit of Stuart, bear right directly downhill (don't traverse across toward Sherpa Pk.). Bearing right will lead to the Cascadian. Look for a long and thin black rock ridge crest atop a cliff on your right as you descend. It's an interesting crest that is quite prominent as you come up or go down the Cascadian.

[Buckaroo]

did the complete ridge in mid july last year, at that time the bypass was passable with just a little wet rock.

 

for the cascadian, go past the false summit. A ridge goes straight down (south) from the false summit, go just past it and then head down the major couloir that is the cascadian. You have to drop down just a bit to pass the false summit. There was a lot of soft snow in the top of the couloir in july last year.

 

watch out for snaffle hounds at the bivies

 

[ 08-16-2002, 11:51 PM: Message edited by: Buckaroo ]

[whodgman]

KC:

See post: http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=002639#000000, particularly adr_901.

[Ade]

Did this route yesterday (Friday 16th). There is no snow on the approach from Ingalls lake until you hit the Stuart Glacier. The Glacier is in good condition but icy with some steep sections with poor runouts above crevasses. Gaining the gully below the notch is straightforward with no real moat to be crossed.

 

We did not do the bypass variation but from memory it looked like there was very little ice in it.

 

The Cascadian Couloir is pretty much all dirt and rocks with a reasonable trail. We descended around the remaining snow patches.