Solitude on Mount Stuart

After much exchanging of schedules, Christi and I made a plan to climb the North Ridge of Mount Stuart the last weekend in July. Christi packed the rope and fresh baked cookies and I brought the rack and tent.

The weather looked perfect, we packed light and put a camp at Ingalls Pass to give us a bivy spot and a little more sleep. We started at 4:30 and made good time till the hike below Goat Pass and wandered a bit in the talus field for a while.


The traverse across the Stuart Glacier was mellow and uneventful. A couple was a head of us but turned around leaving us on our own for the day!Glacial recession exposed some more rock below the gully , so we had some alpine spice before 8, avoiding
looseness. Christi took the first block from just below the notch and led us to the first hard move, where I took over for a pitch. Christi got her grove on as it was her second lead of the summer and led the second block to the Gendarme!







We climbed the first 2 pitches of the Gendarme, awesome, even the offwidth with many features outside for feet felt fun. We climbed around to the saddle for pitch 3 and arrived at the saddle where simul-climbing is not a great option. I tried to shorten the rope, but I ended up pitching it out for another 4 pitches and ended up 1 pitch below the summit. We finally encounter people, 6 climbers from the West Ridge, breaking our solitude for the the first time since we crossed the glacier, what a gift!





Sharing the route finding down the Cascadian, we headed down to beat the sunset, since it was just after 5. The descent was long, with a small snow field, many lost trails and headlamps on from Ingalls Creek to our tent. We made it back after 11, slept till 4 and drove home at 6.
Although our spouses were worried, we just a few hours behind schedule. With no cell phone reception till the end of the Teanaway River Road, apologies waited till after 7 AM. Still a classic day in the Alpine, Thanks Christi!

Linguini with Penitente

The allure of Mount Rainier for climbers and skiers is much like a moth to the flame. Hard to resist a big snow covered mountain, so Sally and I gave in and headed up the Emmons Glacier July 12-13. Sally and I share our East Coast roots, which helped create the trust needed to convince her that she should ski Rainier for her first glacier climb.... We headed up the Interglacier after trail damage and soft snow slowed us down but we made to camp by 6:30. Our welcoming committee to Emmons Flats included the all wise group leader asked us if we had read the forecast for high winds and if we were prepared to ski boiler plate snow. I thanked him for his wisdom, continued to set up camp and settled in to sleep by 9:30.

The wind decided to blow on Sunday so we delayed our start till 4:30. Like wine, best to wait till the snow is ready to ski, otherwise the crust tends to disturb a perfectly good descent. The track was in so we followed the yellow brick road and depoted the skis at 12,500' due to big, open crevasses and increasingly icy conditions.

The route traversed all the way across the Winthrop glacier which added a lot of extra travel which allowed the 40+ mile an hour winds to pummel us that much longer. Sally pondered the value of the summit versus the skiing. At almost 14,000' she decided that she was too close to the top and would suffer the rest of the way.





We topped out in swirling clouds, increasing winds and diminishing views. Five minutes later we headed down and arrived at our skis an hour later. The sun had come out and the winds mellowed enough to soften the snow. A pair of skiers had sideslipped the route for us so we were psyched to click in and make some turns!

Softening penitentes made the skiing challenging. We side slipped through some interesting crevasses but managed to whoop it up into camp. The best turns were on the Interglacier some 12+ hours after we started our day and Sally mentioned something about her legs were over it.


With noodle legs we cruised the last 2000' of perfect corn into Glacier Basin, passing several large parties on foot. The best turns finished at the creek so we unclicked and packed our skis down to the car for our well deserved cold beer!