[Jake Robinson]

A few years ago I read a report from mtn.climber and rocknclimb that described a good snow route up Mountaineer Ridge (just north of Mount Stuart). I thought that given the right conditions, it could make a good winter climb. Given low avalanche danger and clear weather, Masayo and I decided to give it a shot today. We left the Icicle Creek Road at 6:20 AM. Much of the first mile of the road walk was bare. After that, it was a packed highway all the way to the Stuart/Colchuck Lake trail junction. We donned snowshoes at the junction and followed an old, partially snowed-in skin track to Stuart Lake, arriving 3h30m after leaving the car. The packed trail made for very efficient progress with minimal trailbreaking. There seems to be very little snow below 5000' compared to previous years I've been up here.

Early morning road walk

Arriving at the trailhead

Bridge over Mountaineer Creek

First look at Stuart

From Stuart Lake, there are two prominent couloirs visible on Mountaineer Ridge. We decided to take the westernmost couloir as detailed in previous TRs. We snowshoed across the lake and broke trail in snowshoes to the beginning of the couloir. We wallowed up the couloir until it became too steep to snowshoe, then started booting with ice axes. The trailbreaking was exhausting, but eventually we hit some nice wind-affected snow that made for great climbing conditions. The top 300' of the gully was fun, 40-45 degree snow that took great axe plunges and nice secure bucket steps. We never needed crampons, but were happy to have our axes.

Crossing Stuart Lake

Masayo breaking trail, our couloir ahead

Slow going up the couloir

Gets a little steeper towards the top

From the top of the couloir, we continued ascending until we hit a rock step just below the false (west) summits. From here there were a few tricky snow-covered class 3/4 moves to get up to the notch between the false summits. If you're thinking about going for this one in winter, I'd recommend bringing a rope and a few slings in case you want to protect/rappel this section. If we'd had a rope I would have rappelled. Since we didn't have a rope, we had to make it work with careful and deliberate moves. From the notch between the false summits, we followed the ridge to the true (east) summit. There were some delicate moves across snow-covered talus and some krummholz-belays, but we made it. The view of the North Face of Stuart is one of the more impressive sights that I have seen in the Cascades. This is a spectacular viewpoint.

The payoff

The summit was some precarious snow-covered boulders

Eightmile, Axis

Dragontail, Colchuck, Argonaut

Mount Stuart, Full North Ridge

Sherpa

Stuart Lake, our tracks faintly visibl

Colchuck, Argonaut

Eightmile, Axis

We were even able to find the 2004 Fay Pullen register buried in the summit cairn. It was frozen solid, but we thawed it out until we were able to sign our names without damaging the paper.

Register

Register entry

Eventually it was time to go. We carefully reversed our steps back to the top of the couloir. We downclimbed the top 200' of the couloir and plunge-stepped/glissaded the rest. What fun!

Masayo on a tricky bit getting back to the false summit from the true

The top of the couloir. I'm sure this has been skied

Downclimbing

Stuart Lake

Exiting the couloir

Views from the lake

Heading back across the lake The rest of the way back to the car went quickly. We were surprised at the lack of snow in the Icicle. We got back to the car at 4:40 PM for a round trip time of 10h20m. 19.5 miles and 5000' gain including the road walk. Overall a great day with an extremely strong partner. I am feeling satisfied, but pretty beat right now.

Near the Eightmile TH, maybe not the best time to ski Cashmere right now (at least lower down)

[RichP]

Awesome! Great looking conditions.

[Brushbuffalo]

Looks like your route was a fun one!

[gb]

[rocknclimb]

Nice work Jake. The views of Stu up there are outstanding for sure

[Backpacker Joe]

Wonderful report. Thanks for posting. I wonder where these people get their energy?