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[TR] Stuart - Cascadian Fun 6/20/2009


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Trip: Stuart - Cascadian Fun

 

Date: 6/20/2009

 

Trip Report:

Having endured the 'classic' descent of Stuart's south side five years ago, I decided to see how my perspective might change when heading uphill on it instead. There was little difficulty recruiting an eager, emphatic, energetic, and otherwise enervated team:

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Seven of us launched from Seattle saturday morning and arrived at the ingalls th roughly 11:30 am, connecting with Dave - a fellow cc'er. By noon we were heading up the trail. By 12:15 I was running back to the car to retrieve someone's forgotten ice ax. By 1:20 we were admiring the views from the top of longs pass

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In my ignorant mind, I had envisioned the couloir being filled with snow, permitting straightforward step-kicking all the way to the ridge. Recent warm weather chose otherwise. The temps were warm (60-70s?) and the skies were mostly blue, with clouds blowing in from behind Stuart. We sucked in the views and then worked our way down into Ingalls basin.

Classic river crossing

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Somehow managed to find the right trail leading up the Cascadian (it starts at the edge of an open sloping meadow) and wandered a ways on talus until I realized that we were committed to finishing the couloir before sundown - there are no bivy spots until the ridge and none of us felt like hiking back down to the river to camp. I glanced over toward ingalls peaks and noticed the cloud buildup

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The joys of snow-free couloir hiking

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Amy and I reached the end of the cascadian just before 8 pm - 4 hrs from the basin to the top and rougly 7800 ft. We found several amazing bivy spots with snow nearby and tantalizing views of the foothills and Rainier far in the distance. Stuart's false summit loomed above us

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Sparing little details about difficulties our other team members were facing getting up the couloir, including my descent in flipflops to retrieve an abandoned pack, we all were safely at basecamp by 10 pm (!)

Brewed drink fixed dinner and headed to bed. Set my alarm for 5:30 hoping for an alpine start. Awoke close to 8 am with some dismay, and couldn't figure out why my alarm hadn't sounded (this was later unravelled on the trip down when the watch cheerfully whistled at 5:30 pm). I think the xtra sleep did us all well. While gearing up, I fortunately managed to stumble on the 3 softball-sized rocks an anonymous team member had slipped into my pack. Got breakfast and got moving up the trail until reaching a notch where Sherpa can first be seen. From there, easy scrambling leads to the start of the steep snowfield up to the false summit. We cramponed and ice axed up, regretfully leaving two of our members behind. Dave also had to bow out from tagging the summit - father's day plans that evening - and thanks to my late start, had forced his premature departure. Sorry dave!

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From the false summit, easy rock scrambling and snow traversing along the ridge leads you to the top!

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Stuart had done a fine job of keeping the weather on the north side at bay throughout the night, yet became overwhelmed as we climbed higher. Heading down from the summit we were fully consumed in clouds with light snow falling. Took just over 3 hrs from basecamp to the top. Less than an hour back down to camp. Packed up and headed out as the weather fell over us. A mix of rain and snow hammered our descent and lingered with us the whole way back to the car, which was reached at 9pm (!)

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

a good sense of humor

 

Approach Notes:

patience

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I vowed never to climb that choss-tacular kitty litter fest ever again. I live a life menaced by the fact that the North Ridge is so badass, yet it almost requires a descent of this route.

 

My favorite part (not really) is staring back at long's pass and those dinky steep switchbacks.

 

I must admit though, you decided to climb a hell of a mountain for that view. It's awesome!

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