[TR] Mt Stuart - West Ridge 6/28/2008

[ira]

Trip: Mt Stuart - West Ridge

 

Date: 6/28/2008

 

Trip Report:

Lee, Stefan and I set off Saturday morning to climb the West Ridge of Stuart. We hadn't seen any trip reports for this route yet this year which seemed surprising. Since none of us had done this route before we were hoping to get some up-to-date info but alas, there was none. We did have posts and pictures from many other people who've climbed the route in previous years and knew all about the route finding problems for first timers on the west ridge. We found the info on ClimbingWashington.com to be quite helpful and also the pictures in SummitPost.org, along with some other detail info we found on the web.

 

One key piece of info we got was to go up the second gulley from the west all the way to the top of the ridge. This was under heavy snow most of the way up and it was quite steep in the upper portions (50 deg?). Following the pictures and guides we crossed into the next gulley to the east heading to Long John's Tower. We tried going left initially and ended up on solid class 5 rock which we knew was one way up but not the way we wanted to go. So we downclimbed a bit and moved further right onto class 4 rock. This was much easier but was quite wet so the small rock particles (sand) mixed with water made it a bit interesting.

 

We followed the guides pretty much as they directed us so we were able to stay on route quite well. We headed towards the west ridge notch, sometimes on rock, sometimes on steep snow. It was starting to get late at this point, 8PM, so we knew we needed to start looking for a bivy site. We crossed some very steep snow (55 deg) and got onto a small rock ledge where we were able to find a reasonable place to build a bivy site for the three of us. Lee and Stefan built the site while I got the stove going so we could have a hot dinner. It was amazingly warm that night and totally clear. Just beautiful up there. We were at about 8700 ft.

 

The next morning we headed off towards the west ridge notch. At first we went straight up to the ridge top to a notch, but it was not the right notch. We had to rappel from there to continue our journey eastward and up. We obtained the west ridge notch pretty easily with class 3 and 4 scrambling. Now the "obvious ledge" leading to the north side baffled us for awhile. We eventually found a nice route up the north side of the rock from the notch but i'm not sure if it is the standard route. It was class 4 to easy 5, exposed, and quite short. This brought us to the ridge crest and onto the south side ledge of the summit block. It took us awhile to figure out what route to take from here. There's a class 5.4 route and a 5.6 route and who knows how many others. This was the first time we pulled out the rope for climbing. We eventually picked one and Lee took the lead up the right corner. He set an anchor at about 30m which turned out to be perfect for 3 people climbing as I tied into the middle, climbed up to Lee and there was just enough rope left for Stefan to tie in and come up. We did this again for the next pitch which brought us just below the summit. From there we scrambled onto the summit block.

 

Views were stunning, weather warm (t-shirts and shorts) and we were all alone on an amazing peak.

 

For the route down we intended to take the Cascadian Couloir but we didn't go far enough east and I believe went down Ulrich's Couloir. There was a very steep snow field at the top and after that we went back and forth between snow and rock. We did two rappels to get past waterfalls lower down the gulley. Eventually we arrived at a raging Ingall's Creek which we crossed by sitting down on a large log and scooting on a butts. At this point it was 8PM so we decided to spend the night right there.

 

The next morning we got up a little past 5 AM and headed up the Long's Pass trail. There's lots of downed trees in this section and streams that have taken over the trail. The upper portion is still under snow so we donned our crampons and ice axes for the final ascent to the pass. From there is was all downhill and a very nice arrival at the waiting car. A stop at Cle Elum at a coffee roasting cafe for some wonderful coffee, smoothies and sandwiches finished off a fine climb.

 

Gear Notes:

Al crampons and ice axes, small rack of nuts, tricams, a few small cams, some single and double slings.

[Off_White]

Sounds like a pretty perfect outing, thanks for the story.

[Rad]

Nice alpine adventure. Later in the season it is much more straightforward, and perhaps more boring.

[kevino]

Good work up there. two bivies is quite impressive. but perhaps thats why there haven't been any trip reports yet.

[sobo]

My first trip up the WR of Stuie almost 20 years ago had route-finding issues that resulted in the unplanned bivy on the descent. It's classic fare for first-timers, so you're in large company. Good on ya for getting it done.

[Hiking4Fun]

Thanks for the report. I am hoping to do the climb this weekend if the weather holds. Did you have to melt snow for water?

[dmuja]

 

Way to go man! Sounds like you came prepared. Congrats.

 

We hadn't seen any trip reports for this route yet this year....

 

No real trip report here but, http://cascadeclimbers.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/ubb/showflat/Number/810546#Post810546

just a brief description and a couple pics from our trip on the 24th. Ours became an epic for several reasons and we descended the WR coulior in the dark - not fun.

 

Its a fairly big route, and personally I think its good to bring bivy gear on this one.

[sobo]

Its a fairly big route, and personally I think its good to bring bivy gear on this one.

"If you bring bivy gear, you will bivy." ...Yvon Chouinard

 

That being said, I did not bring bivy gear on my first trip, and I bivied anyway!

[ira]

we did have to melt water. there's lots running down below of course and a ton was coming down Ulrich's Couloir, but high up on the ascent route we didn't find running water. we carried a small stove with us.