[Randy]

Climbed this thing yesterday via the Ingalls Lake TH (or whatever it's called). We ascended quickly to Longs Pass in about an hour then dropped a hell of a long ways into the Ingalls Creek valley. At the creek I finally switched into my boots in preparation for the long climb up the choss to the east ridge of Sherpa. I also put water in my bottles here as it seemed like a good idea to save weight and not bring any up and over the pass. We turned right on the Ingalls Creek trail and then followed it down river for maybe 3/4 of a mile until we came to the second way trail heading north up the hillside (we fathomed this is one of the dog routes up Stuart). We chatted with a couple playas camped near to this trail about this and that (they were very curious about wat we were up to). Then when one guy started talking about how he kills all the thistle he sees, we got weirded out, took off up the hill and left them behind. The trail snakes up through a few hundred feet of grass and then gains another 800' feet or so until it comes to a sandy gully with rock walls on either side. We left the trail here and went to climbers right up above the gully propper. We continued to the east until coming to the gully directly south of Sherpa at about 6200'. We continued on up directly below Sherpa the skirted a cliff band to the east. Up choss and more choss to about 7100' where we came to a large gully heading up and to the right. The gully was decent travel in medium choss. At the first gully intersection we went left then a few hundred feet later we went right and all the way up to the east ridge about 100' above the 8000' notch that is visible on the Sherpa profile east of the summit. This is where Sherpa finally gets fun. We dropped some gear and headed up the ridge for an obvious chimney with rap slings at its head. We belayed an 80', low 5th pitch up and to the left of the chimney then walked up about 30' vertical to where we had to cross over to the south side of the ridge. We hopped some rocks to get to the south side, then accessed a sandy bench just below the next pitch. We climbed the next 80' up class 4 (some low 5th moves) on a belay although the climbing is easy enough that this isn't really necessary. This brought us back to the ridge crest. Next, we crossed to the north side of the ridge on a fun, exposed slab about 70 or 80 feet long. There's a nice crack at the top of the slab that makes for good hand holds and takes pro nicely. We continued up on sandy ledges to another slab on the ridge crest. We were just west of the balanced rock at this point. Here we burried our heads in route reports that didn't make a lot of sense when up on the mountain. Actually they made no sense at all. We climbed a couple pitches to nowhere and just generally watched our time tick away. Stupid. We eventually bypassed the second slab to the north on a ledge and took this ledge (on the north side of the ridge) basically as far as we could where we found the chimney that leads up to the summit. We climbed the class 4 chimney then I led out across a couple exposed slabs up tp the summit and finally it was all over. A look at my watch and time yielded a "what the f*ck?" reaction. It was late and we didn't stay on the summit too long. We made 5 rappels back down to our gear, our 30m rope being just barely long enough (rope stretch helped). Needless to say, we got the hell out of there and ran back down to the Ingalls Creek trail making it just before total darkness overcame the valley. I almost managed to lose the shoes and filter I left at Ingalls Creek, in total darkness my hiding spot was a real pain in the ass to find! We managed to follow the trail up to Longs Pass and in about 45 minutes from the creek we were there. Just one more downhill section to the car and it went fast. All day, I had eaten a few disgusting beef sticks with an old expiration date and a bag of gummy bears, so I was starved when we got back. We tanked up on some gas station gourmet on the way home and I was finally in bed about 0245.

[Stefan]

Were my route descriptions too confusing? Ahhh. Long days. Not eating much. Getting back to the car in darkness. Aint nothing like peakbagging. Complete exhaustion. Gotta love it.

[Mike Collins]

Randy...I didn't know you liked post pull-date meat products. I usually throw them out but will save them for you in the future. I think I have some 2003 Easter bunnies for you as well. Nothing wrong with gas station cuisine. That is where I do my food shopping.

[Randy]

Stepin - we didn't use the reports you gave me as we ended up going a different route. We had other reports that we should not have been using in hindsight. Mike, bring the bunnies next time out. They may fuel me to keep up with you on the ascent.

[Randy]

Finally, some pictures!

Ascending From Ingalls Creek

Ascending Gully

First Pitch Around Chimney

Summit Slab

Balanced Rock From Summit

Rappelling the Second Pitch

[Tazz]

ooooh yaaaaa thats what I'm talkin about!!! great pics and TR!

[ActionBetty]

sweet