kinkbmxco Posted June 22, 2015 Posted June 22, 2015 Planning on Stuart West Ridge next weekend and was wondering if anyone has been up lately. I was thinking no on crampons and yes to ice axe for descending the cascadian couloir. Anyone have beta? Quote
dmdebruin Posted June 25, 2015 Posted June 25, 2015 Was on Stuart 6/2-4/2015. I haven't been since, but I'd agree axe and no crampons. Quote
rl23455 Posted June 27, 2015 Posted June 27, 2015 Was there on 6/20. The 400 ft gully up to the 15 pitch upper route was snow filled. We turned back. Two other parties also turned back. There were two parties climbing the entire 30 pitch route. We forgot to ask about Cascadian Couloir Quote
kinkbmxco Posted June 29, 2015 Author Posted June 29, 2015 (edited) Did the West Ridge on 6/27. Decided to take an ice axe and crampons to be safe. Ended up not being necessary to have them, though I was happy to have my ice axe. There was still a little patch of snow as you make your way over to Long John Tower. A group that passed us did not have crampons or ice axe. If the snow was harder, probably wouldn't have been very much fun There is still a big snow patch on the way down the Cascadian Couloir. Once again, the snow was soft enough that crampons and ice axe weren't necessary but I was happy to have my axe. (Just depends on comfort level). Here is an picture from over the weekend with some landmarks... hopefully I didn't mess our route up too bad. It is approximate. High Resolution Image Edited June 29, 2015 by kinkbmxco Quote
diepj Posted June 29, 2015 Posted June 29, 2015 Nice work!! Did you do it C2C or with a bivy at the lake? Quote
kinkbmxco Posted June 30, 2015 Author Posted June 30, 2015 JEFF! We did it camp to camp (From Ingalls Lake) not car to car. Quote
KevinC71 Posted July 5, 2015 Posted July 5, 2015 (edited) Did the West Ridge July 2 - 3. There's still some small patches of snow as you make your way to Long John Tower but they can be avoided. We had ice axes but they were not needed. We setup our bivy just behind Long John Tower where we found pockets of snow to help rehydrate. The heat had definitely taken a toll on us so make sure you hydrate! There are still minor trickles of water in the first gully so fill up whenever possible. With the high temps the remaining snow pockets wont last much longer. We headed to the West Ridge notch in the morning and found it after some minor route finding issues. From the notch we worked our way up to a ledge just below the final pitch and after a few short pitches of off route low 5th climbing were finally made the summit. To our surprise we hadn't seen anyone else during our climb and had the summit to ourselves. We descended via Urlichs which has small patches of snow which can be avoided. When in doubt trend right. Lots of flowing water so fill up whenever possible. About 2/3 of the way down we came to a constriction and steep waterfall. We thought about rapping this section but decided it was easier to traverse skier's left for 10 minutes or so. This gave us easy access to the next gully which we followed down to the trail. Pics can be seen here: https://picasaweb.google.com/112659747688504533474/Stuart Edited July 5, 2015 by KevinC71 Quote
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