Anywho, I drove on down to Leavenworth and met my friend Jen and her boyfriend, Ryan, for some dinner and then we drove to Seattle together. The initial plan was for the three of us to climb Mt. Stuart, but then Ryan had to back out because of work. So, Jen and I headed up to the trail head on Monday night, and camped there to get an early start.
A view of mighty Mt. Rainier on the drive to the trail head from Seattle.
Stuart is a big mountain. It is the second highest non-volcanic peak in Washington. It is a behemoth of a peak, comprised of black and gray granite dramatically cut into soaring rock pinnacles and gorged by long deep gullies. Our plan was to climb the classic West Ridge. A moderate alpine climb that goes at 5.6. However, it's a 7 mile approach to the base followed by 2400 feet of climbing. The plan was to do it in two days. Get as far as we could on the first day, probably bivy somewhere up high on the rock and then get down and back to the car the next day. The plan didn't quite meet reality.
The wind howled all night and I slept poorly. It was somewhat of a relief when the alarm went off at 4am. Packs loaded up, we were hiking by 5am. The first three miles went smoothly enough. Neither one of us were in particularly great shape, but our legs soon found their rhythm as we made our way towards Ingalls Pass and quickly dispatched the first 2000 feet of elevation gain.
The sky at 5am.
Gaining elevation early in the morning.
The view from Ingalls Pass smacks you like a bucket of glacial water. Rocky Ingalls Peak rises to the northwest, but you barely register its existence because the king of the Central Cascades stares down at you like a gigantic haunted castle. I won't lie. I got a little scared when I first saw Mt. Stuart with my own eyes. Its size and color were overwhelming. It is certainly one of the most impressive peaks I've gazed upon.
The beast.
In order to get to the other side of the valley you have to traverse through an alpine cirque, weaving your way underneath the rocky buttresses of Ingalls Peak and crossing the old glacial polished slabs above Ingalls lake. The wind was really letting us know that it was alive that morning. It was blowing clouds rapidly across Stuart Pass, where we were headed, and distorting our view of Stuart.
An ominous looking Stuart from Ingalls Lake.
Jen crossing the glacial polished slabs above Ingalls Lake.
Jen heading towards Stuart Pass with the big guy beyond.
A funny deer that followed us for a little while.
After 5 hours on the approach, we made it to the base of Stuart at 10am. We began scrambling up the long first gully leading up towards the ridge. We would later discover that this was not the right gully to begin at. Once that gully ended we did some easy 5th class traversing into the next gully, progressively working our way higher and higher up the peak. Here's Jen in the first gully on Stuart.
Higher up on the behemoth.
Fantastic views of Mt. Rainier from up high.
El Senor Joshua with Ingalls Peak and Ingalls Lake below.
The West Ridge of Mt. Stuart is certainly a classic route, but it is not to be underestimated. Route finding is a serious undertaking on this giant. While the route, if followed exactly, is moderate, it is very easy to get of course and find yourself in 5.10 (or harder) terrain in no time. Many parties have experienced the frustration of route finding here, and, ta da, we weren't spared the experience either! Things didn't seem to match up exactly with the route description we had. We were looking for a specific tower, Long John's Tower, but we couldn't tell which one it might be with the dozens of other rock towers on the route. After some time spent frustratingly trying to find a way through, we decided to pull the plug and head down. This is where the epic began.
The normal descent route off of Stuart is on the other side of the mountain, after summiting. Not wanting to have to rappel and leave gear for any of the sections we had just climbed, we took a chance and tried to descend down an unknown gully near where we were. The first gully was a pile of poo. Nasty skree and loose blocks of rock brought us down a bit where we then traversed into another equally crappy gully. This one involved some snow downclimbing, water polished slabs and some waterfalls mixed in with the loose rock. Wow, this is getting fun. Oh wait, this gully cliffs out. Guess we'll have to traverse into another one. Basically the next few hours sucked. But in a hurt so good kind of way.
See, life in the boreal had really made me craving some adventure. And a bit of mountain suffering was just what I needed. So while my body was pretty tired from having been on the go for over 12 hours straight, my soul was on fire. This is the kind of self-purification you only get in the mountains. It's very hard to explain unless you've experienced it. At the time you think, "This sucks, why am I doing this?" But, once you get back to the car you start to think, "That wasn't so bad. I mean yeah it hurt, but it wasn't THAT bad. Man, I wonder what I'm going to climb next weekend?" Call it obsessed, call it crazy, call it what you will. This is what happens.
It took us over four hours to get off Stuart and back to Stuart Pass. This is looking back at the beast from the Pass.
The hurt was definitely on at this point and we just kept pushing our bodies to continue back the way they had come. We made it back to Ingalls Pass around sunset and caught this view of Stuart on our way there.
The next three miles down to the car were probably the longest in my entire life. The hurt was on in full. We stumbled back to the car at 10:45pm. We had been awake since 4am and had been on the move for almost 18 hours. Our bodies were well spent. As I sat down in the front seat to remove my boots I noticed something new about my body. My feet, after all that time on the go, literally looked like mashed potatoes. It was simultaneously fascinating and disturbing. Still, by the time I crawled into bed that night, I was thinking about another attempt on Mt. Stuart.
