Mt. Stuart – Complete North Ridge

Or: The Bear, the Billy, and Bushy-Tailed Woodrat

August 14-18th, 2020

Sunset from "the notch" bivies

"Not an option." I'm looking down the upper ridge access gully at one lonesome block of snow, 500-600' below. Multiple chockstones and way too much sandy rubble between me and it. I'd hoped it would be reasonable to rappel and/or down climb far enough to gather some ice. This looks far too dangerous. We have 2L of water left, and too little daylight. It's going to be a thirsty night and an absolutely parching day tomorrow. 

This is the second time Grace and I have reached the "notch" bivies on the N. Ridge of Mt. Stuart. Last time our schedule didn't permit an on-route bivy, and we retreated down this gully on firm July snowpack. This time we've got more equipment and more time, but no snow to drink.

As usual my plan was ambitious. I like to dream big (for me), and have a plan to fail. Better that than to succeed at something that's too easy. We approached from the north, bivied at the toe of the ridge, and planned to climb to the summit in a day. Then we'd climb Sherpa's west ridge, and descend back north via the Sherpa-Argonaut col. Not knowing what we'd find there, and seeing a persistent snowfield high in the pass, we opted to bring our ice axe and crampons up the route. 3 lbs of gear we never used once.

The trail was crowded as far as the turnoff to Colchuck lake, sparse after that, and then we plunged into the beautiful deserted forest north and east of Mt. Stuart. It's a pocket of the west-slope rainforest, stranded east of the crest. Eschewing the idiotic cairned high route up the valley we headed for the stream, the good footpath, and a world of moss and rushing water. Black squirrels chitter, spiderwebs shimmer, and an enormous black bear shambles away, giving us a wide berth. He must be more interested in the plump blueberry crop at the stream crossing.

Sherpa (L) and Stuart (R)

Our first views of Stuart are awesome as always: the dark castellated granite buttresses rising to the unseen summit, the gleaming blue-white ice cliff in its deep polished recess. We plod up the boulders to the moraine crest and make our way to the toe of the north ridge. The bivy rock is occupied by another party, but no matter. More cleared sites are scattered around.

Stars wheel slow and bright, the night is moonless and still. Meteors streak, and countless satellites speed along their unnatural tracks.

*Clunk*

The moon is up, and something large is moving closer, rattling the large granite talus that surrounds us. I think of the bear and grope for my axe. But it's just a big Billy staring at me, moonlight gleaming off the black points of his horns. You can tell them from the Nannies by the barrel chest, broad head, muscular build, and greater belligerence. Not that much less frightening than a bear when you're lying down with your boots off. But he's just here for my urine. He keeps me awake for awhile, chomping on the gravel I'd anointed earlier, ultimately bedding down in another bivy site ten feet away.

Billy gets his salt

Up with the dawn, we see the other party heading up ahead of us. Billy follows them for the first 4th class pitch, but eventually comes back to us for his morning cup-o-pee.

Rock shoes on and out we go. Beautiful rock. First crux in the squeeze. Ugh! *Scrape*. The pack goes onto a runner from my waist. So much better. Then we're at the second crux corner. Long, beautiful, pretty hard in places. My fingers scream when I start lie-backing with that pack. I hang, look down at the parties queuing up behind us, and start pulling on gear. I run it out through the easier 5.8 jamming above, then one more thin bulge and I'm at the belay.

Crux pitch!

Six more beautiful pitches of low-mid 5th class rock bring us to the beginning of the simul climbing up white sandy ledges, and around to the northwest side of the ridge. Last time, I traversed the ledge system that cuts across this face for quite a ways, and found a moderate 4th and low fifth route that brought us to the notch bivies in no more than two simul pitches. But this time, there are lots of parties on the route, and everyone is heading up much earlier. Do they know something I don't?

I follow, and it's a big mistake. Of course, the parties ahead are not as fast as I think they're going to be, and it's lots of lichen-covered 5.7 that turns into 2 or 3 belayed pitches. 

Hours lost, we arrive at the notch bivies around 4:15 PM. Three full hours slower than last time we were here. I'd hoped to reach this point by noon. My impulse is to use the daylight. There's no water, so we have to go! But Grace wisely convinces me it's better to sit tight where we have good bivy sites than risk being caught by the darkness in 5th class terrain.

It's a stressful night. We have perhaps 2L of water between us, and at least 6-8 hours of climbing in the morning before we can expect to reach the summit snows. I've never gone so long in the mountains with so little water. I'm worried about how my body will cope. I pull my mask up in the hopes of minimizing respiration losses. It seems to help. And we decide we're going to take the easy way out. Without effective athletic recovery overnight, I'm not willing to attempt the gendarme pitches tomorrow.

Sunset views to the north

The wood rat comes with full dark. Rodent teeth working upon vital gear is a horrid sound. It's after our salt, just like the Billy, but this guy is going after our pack straps. It eats all the finger loops out of Grace's crack gloves before we even know it's there.

I get up and hang the packs off a cam, dubious that this will work, but with nothing better available.

*Nibble* *Gnaw* *Scratch*

It's on the hanging packs, happily chewing away. I get up again. These guys can scamper up blank overhanging granite. What now? There are no overhangs available to get the packs free hanging. Eventually, I build a 20 kN-test clothes line to hang everything on; long slings and some gear in opposing walls of our alcove. It does the trick, and the rat is gone.

Moving again at dawn. We cruise for awhile on 4th class ground, and then it starts to get delicate. Beautiful rock, reasonably easy climbing, but lots of places you don't want to fall, and don't want an unexpected tug as you traverse the knifes edge. We wind up short pitching a lot of it. It's slow, but so, so, fun, even with just a mouthful of water per belay.

High on the upper ridge

All this time, I'm stressing about two things in Beckey's description of the bypass around the gendarme. The rappel "from a bolt" and the "crux friction move over a rounded face" that exits the gully. Neither turn out to be an issue. Rather than a rusty 1/4" singleton at the rappel point, there's a pair of shiny new 3/8ths with rings. Rather than a desperate 5.9-feeling run-out above a ledge fall, there's a nice staircase of holds and good gear. Past those two imaginary hurdles, the rest of the day transforms into pure joy.

The "crux friction slab"?

The hardest parts of the NW bypass are all in the things Beckey gets wrong: there's no ledge system I noticed after the rappel, and the hardest climbing is a bit of dirty lichen-covered 5.7 for the "30' up the couloir" (left side). But really, it's all well protected and way more fun than I expected. Maybe it's much more serious when wet iced! After 400' of enjoyable climbing (not 100'!) We reached the "tan-colored saddle", and easy access to ice on the NW face.

Mmm. We spend an hour filling our dromedaries and drinking soup, break out the lunch we've been to parched to eat. It's 2:30 PM. The upper ridge took 8 hours for us to climb, and in that time I ate a Snicker's bar and 3 sour patch kids. But water rationing worked. We were able to keep going, stay pretty happy, and still had half a liter left to jumpstart the ice melting.

The terrain just above the NW buttresses really is horrific, though. Back in boots I trudge up sandy rubble, and try to pick a path through that provides protection, and keeps Grace out of my likely rockfall zone. It works. We exit left onto large boulders and rejoin the upper north ridge route. 

From there we head up a striking 4" crack (5.0) and around to the right we find an awkward exposed step-across to a ledge. There's rap rings here for some reason. I clip them and step, building a belay immediately after to protect Grace from a nasty pendulum and avoid horrendous rope drag. One more simul pitch skirts further right, up a thin face (5.5) to a short chimney. Ugh. One more hard move (5.8). I plug a big cam and pull up and over onto the summit ridge!

Summit selfie!

We don't linger. There's weather brewing and we move quickly down the ridge to the Ice Cliff Glacier col. There we organize our retreat. With an extra day burnt just getting up the ridge, and the beating Grace's feet took in the process, it doesn't seem wise to proceed with our north side decent plan. Grace'e dad, Benno, is fortunately willing to spend his day-off coming to fetch us from Esmeralda basin, and then ferrying all the way back to the Stuart lake trailhead to retrieve the car we left there. Amazing.

The weather finally breaks on us while we're still sitting there, and we scramble into our bivy bag. That keeps us from getting soaked, but the site is too small for me to stretch out and I spend a miserable few hours pretending to be a tent, propping up the bivy bag with my elbows while the wind and rain whip against the fabric.

It breaks around midnight and I get out, rig up another line to suspend the bag opening properly, and set about the task of eating dinner and melting enough snow to get us properly rehydrated for the hike out. Grace is fast asleep. The stars are indescribable.

The hike down the Cascadian and over Longs pass are tedious and long, but Benno meets us at the trailhead with fresh melon from the garden, hot coffee, and good humor. Life is good.

All the Photos:

Route info, condensed:

1. Unless it's June, and you fear that the low route is really swampy, you should head directly to the stream rather than following the cairns that lead off high through the boulder fields. It's way better down there (I've done both).
2. The simul climb between the top of the lower ridge pitches and the "notch bivies" is best done by traversing the ledge on the northwest side of the crest further around until you can find a 4th class path upward. Going up too early lands you with 2-3 pitches of lichen-covered 5.7 which is pretty time consuming if you aren't good enough to simul climb it.
3. The upper ridge is beautiful, but way more time consuming than we expected due to the delicate balancy climbing.
4. We actually DID find a small ice patch on the upper ridge that we could have made a short rappel to, and there are small bivy sites scattered around up there. We decided to wait for the ice we could see on the NW face.
5. The gendarme bypass is mostly quite good climbing! The rap into the gully is made off a pair of 3/8" stainless bolts. The gully itself is reasonably clean and safe. 30' of dirty but well protected 5.6-5.7 climbing got us up to a comfortable and sheltered belay from which to begin the true exit pitch. Straight up the gully on the right side would have involved a lot more sand and smooth unprotected rock to get round a constriction, but could be easier. 
• Although clean, the gully is exposed to rockfall from parties exiting the gendarme. Think twice if there's anyone up there.
• Beckey's description seems kind of off.
•  no "ledge system" to reach the corner for the exit moves
• the 30' of climbing up the gully was pretty hard compared to the rest
• the 5.4 friction move for the exit was super easy, and protected really well with a red x4 and a #2 camalot.
• The "ledge system" after you leave the couloir is quite narrow. More of a big U-shaped flake system that you continue up
• Climbing out of the U was a bit more difficult than the exit move, but not terribly so.
• All was solid and well protected. It's more like 400-600' to the shoulder, not 100'.
• The "sandy blocks" on the upper northwest face are sort of awful, but not too too bad.  A safe route can be found skirting rock walls for protection, holds, and isolation from rockfall. 
• If you exit the big sandy ramp system to the left over clean boulders when you get to an impasse, it rejoins the N. ridge route. A clean boot crack leads to a step around at a slung horn (easy). Go right and up. We finished up a nice clean wall with thin cracks to a short chimney with a grunter bulge at the top.