Mt Stuart

Date: August 2003.
Sent to washingtonclimbers@yahoogroups.com.
By Kristian Andaker
Photos from this and other trips up Mt Stuart here.

Eddy and I had planned to go up Mt Rainier this past weekend. But after our two fellow Texan climbers decided to go home (they already summitted the mountain earlier in the week), we cancelled the climb. Instead I joined Alex’ and Jerry’s adventure to hike up Mt Stuart.

In view of Alex’ recently developed dislike (I’m sure it’s temporary) for the normal crazy expeditions we go on, we decided to make this a casual, leisurely weekend. Our plan was to hike out to the base of the mountain on Friday evening, camp there, climb up and down the mountain on Saturday, camp again, and then hike out on Sunday. That should give us lots of time to lie under the forest canopy by Ingalls Creek reflecting on life.

We left Redmond around 5pm on Friday, stopped by Burger King (some unidentified individual was in dire need of a fast food hamburger, but then went for a chicken burger when we got there), and dealt with the 2100 feet elevation gain and 1200 feet elevation loss hike before camping by Ingalls Creek. After scrambling to find good places to hang our food up in trees (thinking about it now, I’m sure a bear could have reached it, and raccoons are pretty good tree climbers, so I’m not sure what we were hiding the food from) we then passed out in the tent listening to the stream bubbling right beside us.

Saturday morning we set out around 6.20am, finding the trail head and then heading up the mountain. As usual, one of the first topics of conversation to be covered was ‘now, remind me why we do stuff like this again’. And soon the usual conclusion ‘because it feels good when you get home and take that hot bath’ was reached with a few laughs.

We walked through rock and sand scree until we found a decent boulder field where we could switch to boulder hopping. Without any serious navigational problems, we sped up the Cascadian Couloir and hit the snow field on the way to the false summit. This snow field turns out to be a tiny speck of snow in early August. None the less, without crampons or ice axes, we circumvented the snow field by scrambling up the wall to the left of it. The scrambling is similar to the Mt Si hay stack, but longer and with a significantly higher risk of rock fall. Fortunately we didn’t have anyone above us to shower us with rocks. If I went up this route again, I’d bring a helmet.

The scrambling up there is fantastic, and it keeps going on for quite a while, passing the snow field, up onto the ridge to the false summit, and then on to the real summit, 400 ft higher than the false one. It isn’t until you reach the top that you see clearly that the false summit is in fact not as high.

We reached the top about 3h after starting up the Cascadian Couloir (4600ft elevation gain). Talking to some other hikers we later met on the way down and seeing how much sweat we had accumulated, this was a clear testament to the fact that our ‘leisurely hike’ ambition had failed miserable. It is clear that we’re going to need some coaching before we know what ‘leisurely’ means.

After 1.5h at the top eating, taking pictures and admiring the view, we headed down. Again, the scrambling part is a blast. On the way down the scramble we ended up going down as a party of four was going up. They didn’t have helmets, and before we knew they were down there we had, despite trying hard not to, sent a few rocks their way accompanied by shouting ‘ROCK’. As we came down a little farther and saw the party going up we learnt that one of them had been hit in the back of his head. He wasn’t bleeding, and seemed ok, but this reinforced my belief that a helmet would have been a good idea.

Clearing the scramble we then took to the rock and sand scree instead of the boulder fields going down. The first half of the way down we could slide through the loose gravel at a speed close to glissading over a snow field. Staying with the fast gravel, we ended up missing the Cascadian Couloir (no trip of ours is complete without at least one minor navigational mistake) and got to descend via the Couloir to the west of the Cascadian. This didn’t make much of a difference though since the two Couloirs were very similar. We had no trouble getting our bearings and finding our way back to the tent once we were down.

When we reached our tent early that afternoon we realized we had pitched it more or less in the middle of the Longs Pass trail. We knew we had been close to the trail the night before, but pitching the tent in the middle of the night, we never realized anyone following the trail now actually had to walk around the tent. This tent placement turned out to be quite interesting though, since we got to meet and talk to everybody passing up or down the trail that day. There are some quite interesting people hiking around out in those woods.

We had lunch/dinner at 3pm and then hung around the tent for quite a while talking to people passing by and enjoying the sun and the cold creek water. I discovered I had forgotten my allergy medication at home (that’s a first, quite embarrassing), and as the afternoon wore on, I was starting to feel the itching. Since my allergies can go berserk and more or less incapacitate me in certain environments without medication, I was getting a little antsy about being in bad shape the morning after. Responding to my worries, Alex and Jerry agreed it might be a good idea to hike out that evening, despite Jerry’s left knee feeling bad after a hyperextension during the hike.

We packed up and soon got going on the 1200ft of elevation up to Longs Pass. With heavier packs now on our backs, and quite a steep incline, we were walking slowly. Jerry’s knee was also acting up, and even though he’s quite the stoic, Alex and I could see the pain on his face.

As we reached Longs Pass and the hard section of the hike was done Jerry finally gave in to Alex’ and my nagging and gave us a few lbs from his pack before the final descent to the car.

We rounded off the day with dinner at the Sunset Café in Cle Elum. Waking up on Sunday morning, I realized that the slightly sore throat I’d been feeling as we started out on Friday hadn’t disappeared, but rather built momentum. Today I’m home from work with a fever and a serious speech impediment (I sound like an old version of the God Father). That’s what you get for doing an 8000ft elevation gain hike with the start of a sore throat.

/K