[cartman]

Matt, dicey, Yana and I went in with the fine forecast with the intention of climbing this 8600' summit next to Stuart. The East Ridge is supposedly the easier route but the dearth of beta made route-finding up high interesting. Also, a loose and not particularly aesthetic route. The trail up to Longs Pass went quickly and is still completely snow-covered for 500-700' down the other side. Good log crossing just upstream from the trail crossing. Then headed down the Ingalls Creek trail to the Beverly Turnpike junction. The climbers "path" to Sherpa is 30' before the junction. This is no path, but an excellent trail headed up the hill, all the way to the first gully where it ends. This gully has a waterfall higher up; we followed the gully up and exited below the waterfall to the right and ran the ridge to decent bivy sites at 6500'. Interesting note: the ridge above was extensively cairned and marks what appears to be good route to continue on to scrambling Stuart, as this route would avoid the Cascadian Couloir scree-fest since it seems it would join the couloir at its head. Tuesday morning we dropped down the slope on the east side to the basin (or large gully) and crossed it aiming for a Y-shaped couloir east of the summit block. Entered it at ~7000' and climbed it and then part way up the right-hand fork, then exited scrambling up and to the right to the East Ridge. Scrambled this a ways until encountering a small, narrow gully with slings which had been placed for aid to exit it. Doing so, we dropped axes and crampons and continued easy scrambling west, first along the ridge a short ways then to the left onto the South Face. Then, blocked by an obvious wall, we climbed up from a large bench and over to the North Face where the actual pitched climbing began. The first pitch is an airy, exposed low-5th class traverse of ~200' across downsloping slabs, then blocks. We decided to belay the leader and last and tie off a line for the middle climbers to prusik across. We then scrambled up to ~100' below the Balanced Rock trying to find a route. No go on the ridge between the Rock and the summit. None of the visible gullies appeared to offer other than high 5th class climbing either. After a bit of exploration, Matt decided on a somewhat exposed and occasionally loose 3rd class traverse across the face to the farthest visible gully, which ran all the way up to the West Ridge just west of the summit. This gully is 4th class; Matt free climbed it and set up a line for the rest of us to tie a safety prusik to. Summit was now only a 50' pitch away. This pitch had two exhilarating steps across gaps on downsloping slabs, the second harder than the first. Yana led out--her first alpine lead ever. After tying off the line, dicey and I prusiked over and then Matt was belayed. Summit register was placed by Mike Fitzpatrick and Paul Michelson in June of 1985. According to the register, Sherpa saw a total of only seven ascents last year. Returning we belayed/prusiked the summit pitch and rapped the gully. Repeated our climbing back to the end of the first traverse, then rapped down to the bench on the South Face. We also rapped the small gully, setting up a good rap station above the the aid sling boulders. All in all, a lot of work for a not-so-classic route! Got checked out by a very curious goat on the way back. Eric J. Johnson

[puzzlr]

You've got a lot of energy these days! Nice work.

[cartman]

A few pics from dicey and Yana here, including the goat: http://www.flickr.com/photos/32121172@N00/sets/72157605811904658/ http://www.flickr.com/photos/72363844@N00/

[Tom_Sjolseth]

Sweet dudes, (and dudettes)!! It's nice to see a TR on the E ridge, as I haven't read one before. We did the W Ridge about 5 years ago and I recall very solid rock. Your description of the E Ridge makes it seem harder than the W. (http://www.sverdina.com/sherpa/sherpa1.htm) The approach is a pain in the ass, though.. especially going out Long's Pass after a loooong day. Lots of elevation on this one (8,000'+)

[Matt]

Yana's idea of a comfortable place to hang out:

More pics tomorrow, hopefully.

[Schmidt Alti-Dude]

^ Like we said Yana likes holes . Great trip report and effort. We're going to have to go buy a climbing dictionary to figure out what prusik, belay, coulier, pitch, etc. mean.

[Matt]