[TR] Mount Stuart- Stuart Glacier Couloir 6/3/2006

[dbconlin]

Climb: Mount Stuart-Stuart Glacier Couloir

 

Date of Climb: 6/3/2006

 

Trip Report:

Scott and Luke Gullberg and I left the Stuart Lake TH early Sat AM (2:30) under clear, starry skies. After a couple of hours hiking, the sky started to lighten, eventually day broke, and finally we made it to the mountain that was our objective for the day:

 

We took a little rest, filled our water bottles from the last liquid water we expected to encounter, and headed up the snowfields below the Sherpa and Ice Cliff Glaciers, towards the col below the North Ridge.

 

We took another rest and geared up for the Stuart Glacier. The bergshrund was easily passed on the right and we headed up the couloir.

 

The going was easy and we simulclimbed up until the constriction. In the constriction we encountered two pitches of moderately steep and somewhat rotten alpine ice and snow, which we belayed.

 

Above this, the going got easy as we ascended the widening snow bowl. We attained the West ridge, took a break, and put away our tools. 4th class scrambling led up to the right (south) side of the ridge, where we angled left and regrouped. I was not sure whether the route crossed back onto the north side of the ridge, as the guidbook suggests, at this point or if we should climb higher still on the south side. Looking over to the North side the climbing looked more difficult, mixed and exposed. Scott decided it would go, though, and he took the lead and led us through steep rock and snow bands with neither crampons or tools. After one full belayed pitch, he got to a good belay, with good access above straight up to the ridge crest again. We followed and then I took an easy lead on nice rock up. Here is Scott coming up to the ridge crest:

 

Above this we continued along the ridge until we reached a couple of steep cracks, which we recognized from previous route descriptions.

 

The cracks were ackward with packs on and in plastic boots, so Scott had to ditch his pack to lead up through this crux. Luke followed, keeping his pack on (good on ya, bro), and then the two of them hauled mine and Scotts packs pack up before I followed. We then climbed easy rock to the summit.

 

It had been a long day already (left TH at 2:45, attained summit at 2:00) with a lot of time spent on the approach and climbing rock along the ridge (kind of ironic that the routes namesake makes up such a minor portion of the overall route), and we still had to descend. We headed down to the east to the pass above the Sherpa Glacier. Moments before we got there some skiers had left for their descent down the glacier and we never saw them again, but it looked like a lot more fun than the tedious descent we had ahead of us. We downclimbed the steep upper part of the glacier, then trudged the rest of the way down, filling our water bottles from melting glacier along the way, tired, but it was easy going and still a beautiful day out.

 

The rest of the descent back down to the car took about forever, but we finally made it, returning to the car after nearly 18 hours.

 

Overall an excellent day for the route and a very awesome route made all the better by excellent climbing partners who kept going in spite of extreme fatigue...

 

Gear Notes:

Few pickets

medium rock rack

water purification

 

Approach Notes:

approach is long and mountaineer creek sucks!

Edited June 5, 2006 by dbconlin

[dbconlin]

I do not know we these *&^%$$ pictures never work...

[knotzen]

I believe the tag you want to use for this site is (rather than <...> as in regular html).

[dbconlin]

thanks that seemed to work.

[olyclimber]

awesome guys. way to get out there, looks like you had some good weather.

[DirtyHarry]

Moments before we got there some skiers had left for their descent down the glacier and we never saw them again, but it looked like a lot more fun than the tedious descent we had ahead of us.

 

It was.

 

We saw you guys descending, wondered what route you had done.

Nice job on the one-day ascent. Great pictures!

 

Mtneers Creek aint that bad.

[kurthicks]

good to see you're getting out guys. i'll be in touch for some stuff later this summer....

[chucK]

Nice job and good pics.

 

We climbed the West Ridge Couloir that same day, and arrived at the notch around 1pm. There looked to be the debris of a large avalanche down below your couloir.

 

Was that there when you began?

[scottgg]

yeah, there was lots of debris beneath our route, but conditions were very stable while we were climbing.

 

we passed the berg on the right side, and found the lower couloir held very hard snow/ice, while the upper section got early sun and had sofened up enought to kick steps.

Very neat route!

[John Frieh]

yeah, there was lots of debris beneath our route

 

Good thing you guys had your helmets on.

 

Nice pics

[brian_m]

nice climb Dave & group...

Dave, sounds looks like the weather was a bit nicer than a few weeks ago on Rainier. Must have been nice to see the mountain you were climbing.

[zoroastr]

schweet! ....nice C2C work.

[JoshK]

Wow, what a testament to the effects conditions play on a route. When I climbed that route it looked absolutely nothing like your pictures!

[Gary_Yngve]

We C2Ced SGC a few weeks ago and have pictures that show very different conditions. Curiously no one replied to our thread and said nice job or nice pics... maybe it was because I left the blue windpants at home.

 

http://www.cascadeclimbers.com/threadz/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/572535/an/0/page/1#572535

[TrogdortheBurninator]

That thing changes fast. We were up there that warm weekend between when gary and aaron climbed it and when dbconlin et al climbed it. The bottle neck was actually totally melted out that weekend, so it must have reformed the following week. Unfortuneately the weather was ass when we were there and rocks were coming down so we bailed.

[JoshK]

When I did it (in april if I recall) the coulior was straight forward (as picture in gary's pics) but the west ridge was totally mushroomed snow - basically winter conditions.

[Gary_Yngve]

Nice job as a group of 3! I've always been hesitant to go as 3 in technical terrain because of you travel slower, but it didn't seem to affect you guys much at all.

[dbconlin]

Nice job as a group of 3! I've always been hesitant to go as 3 in technical terrain because of you travel slower, but it didn't seem to affect you guys much at all.

 

Well, we were planning on pretty much simul-climbing the entire thing, so we didn't think 3 would be too slow. We ended up belaying pitches in a couple of spots along the ridge, which did slow us down a bit, but because this pertained to a very minor portion of the time spent up there, it didn't seem to make much difference in the grand scheme of things.

 

Sounds like the rock ridge portion of the route would be a lot harder in earlier season conditions.

[goatboy]

I think it depends. Sometimes, three people can carry two ropes and rack faster than two people would....and if you belay both seconds with a Reverso, you can move about as fast as a party of two at times....plus, descents can be faster with three if you send the first rappeler with the rope to rig the next rappel....so I'm playing devil's advocate about the generalization that three is categorically slower.

[dbconlin]

....plus, descents can be faster with three if you send the first rappeler with the rope to rig the next rappel...

 

umm, how does this work? don't you need the ropes for rappelling? wouldn't a double rope rappel be faster than twice as many single rope raps no matter how effeciently you conduct the latter?

[Gary_Yngve]

Sometimes the terrain doesn't allow for double-rope rappels (stuck ropes, traversy/scrambly parts, etc.).

 

Rapping the South Buttress of Cutthroat is a good example.

[goatboy]

Exactly....Red Rocks comes to mind as well: lots of rope-snagging things there, so quicker to do lots of short rappels rather than risk getting ropes hung up on longer ones.