telemarker Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 (edited) Trip: Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier ski Date: 2/1/2011 Trip Report: Incredibly stoked to see Dan's ski descent of Shuksan, I felt compelled to take the day off Tuesday for a ski trip of my own, though on a much, much smaller scale! I haven't been up to Stuart this year, so my feeble memory sufficiently blocked out the miserable slog up to it. The skin was tedious from the trailhead, as the snow was steely ice pockmarked with postholing divots from the walkers. Several times it was necessary to sidestep up small, insignificant rises in the trail because the skins would not hold. Despite, the trail from the Colchuck junction was great. The coverage up mountaineer's creek is adequate to good, and the snow being so frozen solid, I made quick time (for me) up to mountaineer's basin in three hours from the road. I kept my options open to ascend/descent the Sherpa should the ICG not look good. I got a good look at it, and it appeared okay, though since I've never been on the ICG, it was hard for me to judge unless I just started climbing and assess as I went up. In short, the coverage is bony. I used Dan's beta and hugged the east side of the couloir, next to Ice Cliff Arete for my ascent. This should have avoided most of the crevasses. However, I encountered my first one low down when the thin snowbridge collapsed. From then on, I was careful to probe a few paces in front of me with my ski pole, which helped me find two more cracks with just the thinnest veneer of snow coverage, but enough to completely hide the opening. I got through these, and came to within a few hundred feet of the top, when my pole found another hole, this one being the final schrund, again with a 3 inch covering of sugar snow. I knocked the snow away, and noticed I couldn't see the bottom to this one, and it was overhung with sugar snow about 3 feet deep on the opposite side. No way in hell was I going to try to step across to that without a belay, and I was too tired to descend and end-run it to the east. So, reluctantly I called it good and would ski from there. The descent was good for the first 500 feet, but then after a sketchy short traverse over iced-up snow, I gingerly tied into my axe and threw the skis on the pack and downclimbed the rest, again on icy snow with narrow channels of powder. In my fatigued mind, with fading light, I thought it would be more efficient to jump over the ridge and traverse over to Stuart Lake for my deproach. This proved more troublesome as the entire slope was a sheet of icy snow too, forcing me to boot all the way over to the exit gully leading down to the lake. In short, we need more snow...But as a climb, the ICG is in good shape. The area looking very thin indeed. From mountaineer's basin. Ice Cliff Glacier. Final Schrund. So close! Damn. Precious little quality skiing. Fading light puts an period on the day. There are no fixed draws on the route. Edited February 2, 2011 by telemarker Quote
Off_White Posted February 2, 2011 Posted February 2, 2011 "boney" wasn't supposed to be the word for Feb 2011 Nice pics & TR, the closing line was icing on the cake. Quote
skykilo Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Nice try. That's actually pretty good to have the Ice Cliff skiable this time of year to the b-schrund, if you ask me! I tried that damn thing four or five times before I finally got it. Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 Nice try. That's actually pretty good to have the Ice Cliff skiable this time of year to the b-schrund, if you ask me! I tried that damn thing four or five times before I finally got it. I'll be back on it in march then, if we get more snow in the meantime. Quote
spionin Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 (edited) nice! you know what had too much snow on it for good time this weekend? colfax. you should look into skiing that Edited February 3, 2011 by spionin Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 nice! you know what had too much snow on it for good time this weekend? colfax. you should look into skiing that Got any pics? Quote
kevino Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Hey John, nice work up there. I've been jonsing to get up there. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through you! Quote
spionin Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 nothing worthwhile as far as beta - they turned out really crappy. but the snow was really nice, light, a few groups were out skiing coleman. compare this picture (not mine) from last feb: you should totally ski the polish route. d.c. would have! Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 Hey John, nice work up there. I've been jonsing to get up there. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through you! You bet! Looks like Aaron Scott had better conditions on Colchuck's north buttress couloir yesterday. You climbing saturday? Vantage could be warm. Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 V, you should have brought your skis by the looks of it! Quote
tazz Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 There are no fixed draws on the route. good stuff dude! Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 There are no fixed draws on the route. good stuff dude! I rapped in and removed what I could. Quote
kevino Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 Hey John, nice work up there. I've been jonsing to get up there. Thanks for letting me live vicariously through you! You bet! Looks like Aaron Scott had better conditions on Colchuck's north buttress couloir yesterday. You climbing saturday? Vantage could be warm. Not this weekend, I'm on my stretch of six nights on at work. Hopefully by next week it'll be snowing, if not then I might head out there. We shall see... Quote
danhelmstadter Posted February 3, 2011 Posted February 3, 2011 whoa scary!! good job managing that terrain. sounds like more rain is on the way?! yuck. Quote
telemarker Posted February 3, 2011 Author Posted February 3, 2011 whoa scary!! good job managing that terrain. sounds like more rain is on the way?! yuck. I was thinking of AJ's helmet cam footage last spring of his crevasse fall. Freaky! Quote
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