[TR] Mt. Stuart- North Ridge 7/23/2006

[OlympicMtnBoy]

Climb: Mt. Stuart-North Ridge

 

Date of Climb: 7/23/2006

 

Trip Report:

After my planned partner bailed (having already bought plane tickets from Pittsburgh) I posted up here for a partner. Vince was the first to respond and sounded like a decent guy so we made some plans. He had climbed the North Ridge twice, roughly twenty years ago, but had never done the gendarme finish. I had a 5 day permit so we planned to approach via Mountaineers Creek, descend the Sherpa, and then hike up to Colchuck and over Aasgard Pass to do something else in the Enchantments for the second have of the trip.

We met up in Leavenworth and did the hike and 'schwack in Mountaineers Creek on Saturday. It was way easier than the first time I did it since we found the trail instead of following cairns through the boulders (as soon as you hit the boulder field head to the creek, the trail is right next to the creek and WAY faster). We got up at 4:15 intending to get up the ridge in a day but packing an extra jacket just in case (super warm weather). The approach from that side took a couple hours and involved a couple interesting moves through the Stuart Glacier ice fall with my aluminum axe and crampons, but wasn't bad. We made decent time with a fair bit of simulclimbing up to the gendarme, maybe 4

hours for 11 pitches. My partner was pretty beat at that point, but I was ok to lead the rest and we were still ok for time so we kept going. The two 5.9 gendarme pitches were fun, nothing I felt sketched on at all. The

offwidth was barely that and had plenty of options, plus a fixed #4 camalot to supplement my #11 hex and #3 camalot (although I would have been fine without fixed gear). My partner pulled on gear and hung a bit but made it up fine without having to pull out the prussiks. We hauled the packs for those two pitches too. From there is was mostly easy blocky stuff except for one more 5.9 bit which I did with my pack on. We moved pretty slow though and got slightly off route on the last pitch where I led some dirty

5.8 stuff on the side of the ridge instead of sticking to the crest as we should have. We got the summit at 6 PM with 10 hours on the route.

We figured with 3.5 hours of light left we'd be fine to get down but my planned descent of the Sherpa, but it wasn't a nice as I hoped. It was a lot more melted out then when I did it previously and my partner was moving really slow on the 40 degree downclimbing to the bergschrund. I'd rather he move slow and safe than fall on the way down, so I put on my patient hat. We hit the bergschrund at sunset and ate the last daylight belaying across the sketchy remnants of the snow bridge and then headed to the toe of the glacier. We ran out of light and had some routefinding errors which led to two raps and a hell of a lot of scree and boulder downclimbing. We made it back to camp exhausted but safe at 12:15 AM. Oh well, we still did it in a day. I'd like to go back in and do the "complete" ridge some time, maybe with a little faster partner.

We tried to sleep in that morning, but the hot sun got us up at 7:30 so we lounged around camp a bit and then left to 'schwack out at 10. That went pretty easily and then we headed up to Colchuck for a nice swim. See part 2 for the TR from Temple Ridge.

 

Gear Notes:

Aluminum crampons and ice axe, one set of nuts, 6 cams, 4 large hexes.

 

Approach Notes:

It's still a bit of a 'schwack. Bugs were bad under Stuart.

[Weekend_Climberz]

Good job

 

This is on my list for this year, which means I'll probably won't do it.

[mountainmatt]

Nice work big guy! Sounds like you had a a long, but great day! Hopefully I can get out on that route next season... Pictures?

[dwhenline]

I climbed north ridge stuaart several days ago. We came in from Ingalls lake and biviied on the moraine just before stuart glacier. We could easily get water and this is the best option at this time (in my opinion). We used light approach shoes and yak trax for the glacier crossing, with Petite Loup Ice axe (a childs ice axe, very light). once on the ridge expect 6 hours of climbing and no water. We did the gendarme and found the fix gear intact. a 3.5 camalot would work just as well as a number four.

Descent down cascade colour is easy to find if you just follows the directions for the descent in selected climbs of the cascades vol1. Personally I would seriously consider carrying trekking poles if I did it again. We hauled packs on the two hard pitches and would have no problem climbing the other pitches with alittle more weight. For a rope you could easily get away with 30 meters of 8mm or do as we did and use a 60 m doubled up.

don