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Stuart North Ridge


stevenkalinowsk

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My wife and I climbed Stuart's North Ridge on Saturday. We are not the strongest technical climbers and were a bit put off by Nelson & Potterfield's description of the route as needing a bivy by most climbers. Surprisingly, we found the route much easier than the description suggested (this was a unique experiece for us). I think much of our success can be attributed to our strategy of not carrying over the peak.

We approached via Long's Pass and camped at the base of the Cascadian Couloir. We were hiking by 3am on Saturday and followed the trail to Stuart Pass, and then the climber's trail to the base of the West Ridge, before scrambing over to Goat Pass. We moved slowly and steadily (with a couple of breaks) and got to the start of the ridge in 4.5 hours. The North Ridge, itself, was spectacular, but relatively uneventful (although there was a substantial amount of ice on the gendarme bypass). The descent was long but benign.

There probably are at least a dozen reasonable strategies for climbing this route - other climbers that we met bivied at the base of the route and were climbing in "approach" shoes - but we found that the approach that we used worked well. I'll probably do it the same when I return to climb the gendarme.

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We were going to do the upper portion of the N. Ridge last weekend, didn't have ice axes or crampons, and ended up bailing out on the climb because crossing the main body of the glacier w/out above mentioned gear looked pretty scary. Keep an eye out for a pair of friendly goats up there, they hung out w/ us for half of Sat. and Sun. morning.

And as of last Sunday, the road is closed past Bridge Creek CG, you can't drive up to Stuart/Colchuck Lake TH, have to come from Ingalls side.

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Steven,

I have to agree with you on difficulty of the climb. I did it about 3 weeks before you did. I really enjoyed climbing on good rock but we pretty much simul-climbed the whole thing. The exception is the Gendarme. The 5.9 that they list must be a fred beckey 5.9 (5.10 for the rest of us). There is one short section of off-width after a short traverse to the right. Tricky, but loads of fun.

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