Mount Stuart Complete North Ridge

casruff · Post by **casruff** » Fri Oct 05, 2012 2:48 pm

This summer, life has been fairly busy. Balancing two new jobs between Morgan and I followed by a move from Seattle to Mount Vernon has made things interesting. Nonetheless, we love our new jobs and are psyched to be in the Skagit so come visit ‘cause we have plenty of space. Despite all the business I’ve managed to get out on some fun trips with some good partners.

After a really fun and memorable but short trip with Ryan to Squamish back in July, life got busy requiring a bit of a break from extracurricular activities. However, my good buddy Justin Fox and I had Mount Stuarts Complete North Ridge on the Calendar for the third week in August so I had that to get psyched about in between working/commuting long days between Seattle and La Conner and packing boxes in anticipation of the move. During the period of inactivity I had to make a conscious effort to stay fit whether it be squeezing a run in here and there or sitting at my desk squeezing that crappy little BD blue rubber donut a million times a day (it actually kind of works for forearm/hand/finger strength if you don’t have time to be out on the rock every weekend).

Anyway, the weekend of August 23rd came quickly. Justin arrived from Madison Wisconsin and we were off on Thursday night towards the Teanaway River Road. After some shuteye in the parking lot, we began the approach the following morning at a nice mellow pace as we planned on a bivy at the first notch after the technical difficulties of the lower North Ridge. The approach took a bit longer than expected due to the fact that we had neither axe or crampons and had to descend a fair bit to get around a firm Stuart Glacier.

We were racking up and I was setting off on the lieback/squeeze chimney of the lower north ridge around 2:30 pm. For the next pitch, I stupidly listened to Kearney and chose the alternate variation to the clean looking dihedral. Route finding for this variation is not trivial due to the fact that there is black lichen everywhere. I essentially just had to follow my nose. I thrutched up an un-protectable 6” offwidth and then decided to build a belay and bring Justin up since the way ahead wasn’t obvious. I brought Justin up and then cast off on the next pitch. My goal was to keep veering left since we were obviously too far right. This pitch was essentially hands down the scariest pitch I’ve ever lead due to the nature of the thin moves, minimal thin protection in dirt/lichen choked cracks. At one point I found myself balanced on a couple of dirty chickenheads while trying to garden out a placement for a BD size 2 nut placement with my nut tool. With no chance to even whimper or cry, I placed the nut, and finished the final moves to the ledge. Finally we were back on route. We simuled to the first notch and crashed for the night. The weather couldn't have been better...clear and calm all night.

The rest of the route was incredible. Clean rock, fun moves, and beautiful scenery and exposure. We simuled all the way to the Gendarme and then pitched it out from there. We were on the summit by 5 pm enjoying the sunshine and a snack. I wish I could say our adventure ended here. Specifically, Foxy somehow convinced me that the Ulrichs Couloir was the Cascadian (despite the fact that we had both been down the Cascadian a couple times before). In an effort not to spoil the beta on this particularly enjoyable adventure, I won’t provide any additional beta and hence will leave it up to the readers imagination to conjure up the joy we both felt as we scratched our way down that thing. Nonetheless, I will be back to climb the Complete North Ridge again and again and again.