North Ridge of Stuart

I'm not sure your allowed to call yourself a climber, live in Washington, and not have done the North Ridge of Stuart. After many years of climbing and a couple of prior attempts, lets just say I was on probation. I had to climb this route or leave the state forever...

BJ and I made the long drive, him from Bellingham and I from Camas to the Ingall's Way TH. We left at 2 am and made good time all the way to Goat Pass. We turned off our headlamps around Stuart Pass so we could have left about an hour earlier to utilize every once of daylight but in the end we wouldn't have needed it.

At 7:30 am we were roped up and moving. We brought one strand of half rope, doubled it up, and simul-climbed with 30m between us. I can't imagine having anymore rope out that this. The rope drag can get horrendous at times. 20m might be optimal.

We made pretty good time. By 9:30 we reached the Great Gendarme and two fantastic pitches put us within a few hundred feet of the summit, which we reached at 12:30.

I've heard from many people that the descent and walk out can be difficult, but it was straight-forward for us. Basically you just traverse E around the false summit, crossing a rock rib at about 8980ft (not the 8950 mentioned in Nelson's guide). Then find a large snowfield which faces SE and go down. The Cascadian Couloir ends at a large avalanche carved meadow.

We made it to the car at about 6:00 had a beer and started the long drive home.



BJ approaching the notch at the bottom of the N Ridge.



I'm not sure where this or the next two shots were taken. There's so much immaculate climbing up here, its hard to remember any particular spot.







I took this shot while leading the second pitch of the Great Gendarme. There was some spectacular exposure here.