West Ridge of Mt. Stuart Mountaineering Route, North Cascades
The big day finally arrived... Mt. Stuart was finally in the crosshairs.
An early start, as the day would prove to be loooooooooong.
Bucky and Aaron, ready to go.
Here's our route - the West Ridge of Mt Stuart. There are many options, all about the same difficulty. I think many people spend a lot of time trying to figure out "the correct route" - at least it seems so, based on all the bivy sites there were on the mountain.
We retrace our steps to Ingalls lake, and skirt around the lake to the outlet side...
Mt Stuart from Ingalls Lake, dawnish.
Some purty flowers. Smelowskia?
Ram at the start of the ridge.
The ridge looms above us.
More pretty flowers, Lupines this time...
Pretty interesting climbing up the couloirs on the south face, on solid, blocky pink granite. 4th class steps occasionally interrupt the 3rd class couloirs.
climb up them couloirs!
More flowers.
Climbin' - Aaron's view from above.
...and my perspective, from the back of the queue.
Looking across... then we traverse right into the next one.
Through a notch in the ridge.
And then, up again, past bivy spots.
The whole gang, climbing upwards, and onwards...
We reach the base of the fifth-class pitch to the notch behind the tower. Bucky on lead - got to do the ol' "change-shoes-in-the-middle-of-the-pitch" trick - don't find that at your local sport crag!
Aaron topping out on the technical part.
Looking across at the West Ridge Tower, then to the summit block. We're heading for the notch.
Ram coming up behind "the dog".
Ram looking for clues to the next section of the route.
Tom and Bucky coming out from behind "the dog".
Aaron gives me a belay on a downclimb section that spooked me. Thanks Aaron.
Around a ridgecrest - we stumble on some snow. Uh oh. Aaron traverses across, while Bucky and I look around in a confused fashion.
Bucky belays me across the steep snow. Thanks Buck!
Then we work up the moat...
More of this stuff...
Ram in his element - shattered rock ridges, 4th and ez 5th.
Bucky coming up from below, passing more of the many bivy spots.
A quick couple pitches on the north face, then back up to a notch and onto the south side.
Ramoo following the ridgecrest.
Bucky shocked - shocked I say! - to find some loose rock on the route.
Tom (me) coming up to the ridgecrest.
Ridgecrest pitch goes downhill. I led, Bucky follows.
Bucky leading up the final pitch to the summit block.
and finally, me, Tom, coming up the last pitch.
Ram enjoying the view...
... little Ram enjoying a nap on the summit.
Ingalls, mountain and lake, from the summit of Stuart. Nice shot Ram.
The knees of handsome Ram.
Bucky climbing the actual summit block.
Yo! What a poser! Might even be on steroids, I bet!!!
Some purty flowers, the old Polemonium elegans... right up at the summit. 9000 something feet!
And now for the character-building part - 5500 feet of descent.
Starting down the ridge... down, down, down, down...
Some snow, but mostly lots of steep dirt/talus...
... yeah - stuff like this. Yuck.
More nice flowers.
Down, down, down into the valley. The key was to get to the trail out of the valley before dark - just made it. Then up over a pass. Then down 800 feet. Then back up to Ingalls pass. Back in camp by midnite-ish.