Stuart North Ridge

[stevenkalinowsk]

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.

[Lambone]

Yeah, I think that sounds like a good way to do it. We left bivi gear at Ingalls Lake, but were too hammered to reach it after the climb. My pack is warmer than I thought it would be!

Nice job Steven.

[climbingjosh]

Great job Steven! Was the Stuart Glacier a problem? Did you need to use crampons?

Thanks

[EV]

I did it a few weeks before Steven.

Yes as to crampons.

There is a BIG patch of ice that you can go either high or low. I think high is better.

But the glacier is no problem.

[stevenkalinowsk]

Crossing the glacier was easy with crampons. We walked underneath the first half of the glacier we encountered and then scrambled up the rock rib dividing the glacier to access the second half of the glacier. Walking across it to the gully was no problem. - we didn't feel the need to rope up. I had crampons but no ice ax.

[Mr._Blister]

Sounds pretty much like every other late season on that glacier. Good to know it's still there.

[nolanr]

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.

[Cpt.Caveman]

You can bet it will be icy. I used a ski pole and crampons on shoes. Them aluminum ones. The glacier is very short and easy. You would have to throw yourself into a crevasse in order to fall in Go low to first rockband and scrambling high is the way we did it as well. Have fun !

[texplorer]

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.