[TR] Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier 5/11/2014

[StephenW]

Trip: Mt. Stuart - Ice Cliff Glacier

 

Date: 5/11/2014

 

Trip Report:

After getting snowed off of the North Ridge in September and turning around on the Ice Cliff due to soft snow and warm temps in April, Mt. Stuart was at the top of my list. With a good weather forecast east of the crest, Lukas and I headed over to Leavenworth. We approached Saturday, relishing the drive (instead of walk) up Eightmile road, then continuing up mostly dry trail until the climber's path crossed branched off from the maintained one. We ended up following a set of cairns that pulled us high into some talus (on the way out, it is definitely still easier to hug the creek though snowy forest). After a leisurely afternoon in camp, we made dinner and went to sleep with alarms set for 2:30 am.

 

The next morning, we were reluctant to leave our warm sleeping bags but eventually rolled out of camp under clear skies around 4:15. We racked up on the moraine beneath the ice cliff glacier then started booting our way up along the left edge of a fan of avalanche debris. From there I could see the 30-40 ft step I had climbed on the last attempt on the left edge of the glacier but saw another option on the extreme right edge that looked more fun. So we headed over there. This gave us about 50m (instead of 10m) of ice climbing up to about AI3. The ice was really featured, with blocky glacial ice to the left and a bit of water ice in a corner. The water ice is melting fast (one swing about mid-pitch created a water spigot). I brought Lukas up on a couple pickets and he enjoyed hooking some of the plates and other ice features.

 

From there we continued up the right side of the ice cliff glacier. This route let us easily bypass all of the crevasses except the bergschrund but exposed us to some spindrift coming off of the steep East-facing rock slabs above. I was a bit surprised to see avalanche activity starting at 7 am. Good thing we hadn't lingered in the sleeping bags any longer! The 'schrund crossing was simple, just some probing and a big step over the crack. We traded leads up the ice cliff glacier couloir as the snow gradually grew firmer (probably knee deep before the shcrund vs boot-tops in the last shaded part of the couloir). Since there was the odd shot of ice pellets running down the right edge of the couloir, we stuck to the left and made a quick traverse when the couloir forked. A bit more climbing up snow slopes to 45-50 degrees brought us to the small cirque at the head of the couloir.

 

From below, I had been eyeing the massive cornices and wondering how we'd surmount them. Once we got up there, it was obvious the route was to the right, where the cornice only overhung 3-4 feet instead of over 10. We established a rock belay (couple nuts and a cam) and I set off on my first attempt. A narrow snow gully led to a few mixed moves but I was stopped when I had to traverse under the cornice on a rock slab thinly covered with sugary snow. So I downclimbed and lowered off of someone else's bail anchor to try another variation. The second option I had spotted didn't go.... and neither did the third. After about 2 hours and moving the belay we briefly entertained the idea of turning around but decided to give it one more shot. I went up a line splitting my first and second attempts, clipped the bail anchor as pro and got to the cornice after about 20 feet of mixed climbing. I was able to find a tenuous stance beneath the cornice (right foot on rock edge, left foot in soft snow, tools were mostly useless in cohesionless snow) and started chopping a slot in the cornice. Since my stance was so delicate and the snow was so soft, this part was pretty nerve wracking. After what seemed like hours I flopped onto the southern slopes of the mountain at around 12:30.

 

I stamped a seat in the snow, backed myself up with a cam and started belaying Lukas. He didn't find the pitch any easier than I did but got up it with just as much (non)style as I had. At 1:15, we discussed just heading over to the Sherpa Glacier and descending immediately. However, the snow on these slopes didn't seem as bad as I had expected (given that E aspects were sluffing early in the day). More melt-freeze action on these slopes kept the boot penetration only about ankle deep. So we decided to traverse the steep slopes around the false summit nd climb the last 600 ft to the summit, topping out around 2 pm. We didn't linger long.

 

Luckily, we found the descent pretty obvious in clear conditions. The top the sherpa had slid recently enough to leave a firm bed surface for the tedious downclimb to the bergschrund. Another careful step brought us to the lower glacier and one nice glissade brought us back to the basin we had camped in. We broke camp and started hiking out, reaching the car at about 9:20 pm. Overall, the route was burlier than expected but it felt good to finally finish it. Here's the pics (Lukas took all of the ones he's not in):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Gear Notes:

2 pickets, 4 ice screws, 5 stoppers, 2 cams (BD #0.5, #1), 1 KB

 

Approach Notes:

Trail is almost entirely snow-free until junction with Colchuck Lake Trail. We still found it easiest to follow Mountaineer Creek closely over punchy snow.

Edited May 15, 2014 by StephenW

[Lukas]

nice report stephen. check out the vid: