Mount Stuart Climber's Log

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jmhickman - Nov 2, 2005 9:34 pm

Route Climbed: Cascade Couloir Date Climbed: August 2005  Sucess!

GREAT climb! Two day trip with a party of three climbers. Afternoon hike into bas camp in the valley just below the couloir. Deer fearlessly walked through our camp and a hot meal prepped us for an 6:15AM departure.



Climbing up the entrance to the couloir was easy once we identified the forest trail. Once out of the skree it was an enjoyable scramble up to the false summit. We stayed left of the snowfield and crossed above with a short belay for safety. Spectacular views over the false summit to the true summit. The ridge between the two was clear of snow and we scrambled across, just below the ridgeline. Final pitch up to the summit overlooked Stuart Lake for a beautiful view. The local mountain goat approached in an attempt to bum some trail mix, but settled for some tasty lichen instead.



The return trip was brutal. Down to base camp for a quick pack -up and a long painful trudge back to the cars. Fianl arrival at 10:30PM and a drive back to Seattle! I would recommend a second night or an earlier departure on summit day.



GREAT CLIMB. Amazing Views! Very few climbers! ENJOY!

POWERJL - Aug 18, 2005 12:07 pm

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: August, 2000  Sucess!

2 days, camped in Ingalls Creek basin. 2nd time on-top. Snow patches near the top of the Couloir.



Jeff Power

Dave Hart

Weiss-Young

Roadstead

Roadstead - Aug 2, 2005 9:47 am

Route Climbed: North Ridge, not just half Date Climbed: July 17 2005  Sucess!

Tried to do a one day car to car. Started at the Stuart Lake trail head (after leaving a car at Long's Pass trail head ) at 3:00 am, reached summit at 8:30 pm. Spent the night in the open at about 8,000 feet. It was a 32 hours car to car.

rpc

rpc - Aug 1, 2005 8:50 pm

Route Climbed: North Ridge (upper with Gendarme) Date Climbed: July 30, 2005  Sucess!

Nice route. Did it over a 3-day weekend (camp to camp below Ingalls Lake). Started from camp at 1:30 am. Napped under space blanked before Stuart Glacier for an hour. Stuart Glacier crossing was kinda sketchy with the lightweight approach shoes and light crampons. Got to notch at 7am. Topped out at 1:30pm. Knife-edge traverse was the best part of the climb (pitch 1 of Gendarme was also very good; pitch 2 OW was harder). Only one other party on route. Descent down CC took a long time and sucked (hard on the knees)! Were back in tent at 7pm. Hiked out Sunday morning.

PS Running water available from snowfield just below summit on descent. No other running water was encountered (snow patches just below bivy sites at the notch though).

PPS Putting things in perspective: here. Impressive!!!

Martin Cash

Martin Cash - Jul 12, 2005 11:50 am

Route Climbed: North Ridge Date Climbed: July 3, 2005  Sucess!

Attempted complete NR, but completed only the upper ridge. An excellent alpine ridge climb. The hand traverse sections are really spectacular. Trip Report Here

John Paul - Oct 6, 2004 4:23 pm

Route Climbed: Stuart Glacier Couloir Date Climbed: May 8th 2004  Sucess!

Awesome route. Not much ice...

John Paul - Oct 6, 2004 4:21 pm

Route Climbed: Girth Pillar: rock fall variation Date Climbed: July 3 2004  Sucess!

Climbed crack system to the climber's left of Nelson's original line. Pure granite pornography.

tlogan

tlogan - Sep 3, 2004 9:12 pm

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: September 2 2004

Got about 1/2 of the way up the couloir before the foot of fresh snow and the unending storm forced us to turn around... will return to summit this peak in the near future.

jtostenr

jtostenr - Aug 22, 2004 4:34 am

Route Climbed: Ulrich's/Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: August 21, 2004  Sucess!

We left the trailhead at 6PM Friday and headed over Longs Pass. Got to campsite next to creek at 9PM and went to bed early. We hit the trail at 6AM and went looking for the Cascadian Couloir. None of us had ever climbed Mt Stuart before and had a little trouble finding the correct couloir. We ended up ascending Ulrich's Couloir and crossing over to the Cascadian Couloir about 3/4 the way up. Summit ridge was mostly Class 3 with a couple Class 4 spots. Summited about noon and descended the Cascadian Couloir. Very rocky and dusty, but a good trip nonetheless.

Derek Franzen

Derek Franzen - Aug 15, 2004 9:19 am

Route Climbed: North Ridge Date Climbed: July 4/5 1981  Sucess!

With E Sandbo & T Rashko. Drove over to TH Friday after work. Hiked in to flat spot in trail in dark and slept next to small creek. Up at 4am and hiked over Ingalls, Goat and Stuart Passes. Crossed glacier and climbed gully to ridge. Refilled water bottles from snowmelt. Ridge climbing good 4th and easy 5th class to Gendarme. Avoided Gendarme with rappel to slabs to the W. Couple of 5th class moves up slabs then scramble to summit. Bivy on summit, low on water but not on food. Tim had backpack full of peanutbutter & margerine sandwiches, Eric had plenty of dried bananas, I had peanut M&Ms and cheese. I climbed into bivy sack and started to dine while buddies threw rocks at Snafflehounds. One Snafflehound wanted to share M&Ms and jumped on my chest where food was, Snafflehound was launched into orbit. Descent of Cascade Couloir long and dry, no water. Halfway down talus balanced boulder, no longer balanced when I climbed on it, trundled over me, split back of scalp and boulder rolled over booted foot. Bandaged head but decided not to take boot off. Finally reached Ingalls Creek must of drank 2 quarts of water. Day turned extremely hot on climb up Longs Pass, thankfully we ran out of water but not peanutbutter & margerine sandwiches.

esugi

esugi - Mar 1, 2004 1:04 pm

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: September 22, 2003  Sucess!

What a long slog! Left the trailhead around 4 am reaching the base of Cascadian Couloir at around 6 am. Long slog up the couloir. Obviously no snow this late in the season. Just plenty of rock, scree, dirt, sand, etc. Summitted at 11 am.



Pretty fun towards the top with class 3 (I'd say some class 4) rock to the summit.



Descent was uneventful and made it back to the car at 6pm. See my photo submissions.



Moni

Moni - Nov 15, 2003 8:57 am

Route Climbed: West Ridge/ Sherpa Glacier Date Climbed: Jul 19, 1978 & May 13, 1979  Sucess!

With Fred both times. Need to go back and do the North Ridge.

sprosseda

sprosseda - Sep 10, 2003 11:26 am

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: August 13, 2003  Sucess!

Left car at 9am, setup bivi at top of couloir at 7,600 ft. and 2pm, summitted at 6pm, back to bivi at 8pm. Wonderful, quiet, calm and warm night under full moon! Summit is very high with a fun, slabby, dorsal fin tip. Views down to West Horn and North Ridge are awesome. Summit-false summit traverse is enjoyable class 3 scrambling (a few more difficult moves too) but otherwise the couloir is trash. It's fast going down on all the sand though.

brandon

brandon - Sep 2, 2003 4:33 pm

Route Climbed: West Ridge with Direct Summit Pyramid Variation Date Climbed: Aug 31, 2003  Sucess!

Car to car from Long Pass Trailhead 14 hours. Exciting vertical pitch up behind Long John Tower. 5 or 6 pitches up to about 5.6 on the summit pyramid. Longest scree and talus descent I've ever experienced down the Cascadian Couloir. At least that trail back up over Long Pass is a straight shot. Woohoo..

leejams

leejams - Jul 7, 2003 12:44 am

Route Climbed: North ridge Date Climbed: July 5th 2003  Sucess!

Awesome climb. Views are just Okay but the deal is the fantastic granite . 4 stars for this one.

MikeB

MikeB - Dec 26, 2002 2:17 pm

Route Climbed: North Ridge Date Climbed: July, 2001  Sucess!

Attempted route car to car in a day, but summited at dusk. Survived unpleasant and unplanned bivouac (no bivy gear) on summit.



Did not climb the Great Gendarme section, but instead rapped to climb the 5.7 traverse/slab pitch. Pitch was very icy and unprotectable, but proved to be very enjoyable lead - well worth the trip. Possibly off route on scramble to summit - finished by soloing loose, overhanging 5.10 blocks.



Fun ridge route to climb in boots - mostly high quality granite.

Hammer

Hammer - Sep 23, 2002 10:02 pm

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: September 15, 2002  Sucess!

After a nice and muggy hike over Long's pass into our camp on Ingall's Creek we were dismayed at seeing a huge crowd of tents and bivis at our desired campsite. However, the camp was empty hopefully signifying that everyone was climbing that day. The next day we headed out just before daybreak and headed up the Cascadian Couloir making great time for a large group of 11. We proclaimed ourselves lucky to have the mountain or at least this route essentially to ourselves. We did get passed up by a fast group of two that we later encountered at the base of the small snowfield. After some exciting and fun 3rd class scrambling we found ourselves atop the summit beating out the incoming weather front. We descended with some speed in hopes of beating the weather back to camp but instead felt the heat. As we returned to camp we were surprised to see that we were the only ones left at our once busy campsite. We settled down and discussed our climb. That night it rained pretty good causing my bivi sack to float atop my tarp. It was liking sleeping on a waterbed. The rained stopped as we got out of bed the next morning and kept us cool on our hike out.

Joe Hanssen

Joe Hanssen - Jul 29, 2002 9:23 am

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: Summer '95; Summer '96; Summer '97  Sucess!

Summer '95 reached the top in strong winds and thick cloud cover.



Summer '96 was clear and sunny.



Summer '97 shared the summit block with three mountain goats. Solo

climbit

climbit - May 31, 2002 10:44 am

Route Climbed: Icecliff Glacier Date Climbed: 5/26/02  Sucess!

Great route! Started at 3:30 am from 5400ft basin and went over lower terminal moraine and then straight for the 17th century moraine in the throat of the glacier between the lower North Ridge and the north spur of the East Ridge. Followed route description in this web site. LOTS of icefall and rockfall on the right (west) side of the glacier. Temperatures were on the warm side, so this was to be expected. Snow conditions were crusty and less than styrofoam with a hard layer about 6-8 inches under the crust.



The icecliff was in gentle form so we soloed until above it and then roped up for the 'schrund crossings and couloir/cornice. The crux for us was the cornice pitch. Attempted (and succeeded) in the direct rock and snow pitch into the cornice. Should have tried the right side snow benches. Took us two hours and two different attempts to defeat the pitch, my partner Matt finally succeeding in dry tooling the thing and then chopping the cornice down enough to beach himself on the other side.



Descent began at 1pm or so and was down a very loose Sherpa Glacier. Lots of small slides on the glacier and icefall/rockfall off the ridges and hanging ice in the valley, mostly off the west side. The east side of the glacier had less overall debris but larger blocks. 12 hours camp to camp on the climb.

Bob Bolton

Bob Bolton - Apr 17, 2001 9:42 pm

Route Climbed: Cascadian Couloir Date Climbed: September 2, 1990  Sucess!

Three dads took three 11- and 12-year-old sons to the summit of Stuart from a camp near Ingalls Lake. This is not the approach of choice, as climbing was somewhat of an afterthought to a Labor Day weekend backpack trip to Ingalls Lake. From our camp we had to descend deep into the Ingalls Creek valley south of the mountain. The route begins at the 4800-foot level, making it a 4600 ft+ ascent on mostly rather loose rock. Everyone was ready to quit walking when we returned to the base of the mountain, but we still had the long climb out of the canyon facing us. When we finally dragged into camp, I had no energy for anything including cooking, so forced a few morsels down and hit the sack. It was the most wasted I have ever been in my life.

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