Trip Report
Basic Rock Climb - Ingalls Peak/South Ridge
A successful climb of the South Ridge on a slightly overcast day; flowers were abundant.
Danielle Graham
- Fri, Jul 12, 2019
- Basic Rock Climb - Ingalls Peak/South Ridge
- Ingalls Peak/South Ridge
- Climbing
- Successful
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- Road suitable for all vehicles
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The road to the trail head was fine for all vehicles. Two blow downs to step over on the trail. Running water available at a few points between Ingalls Pass and the lake. There is still some snow on the approach to the base of the climb. It is possible to scramble around the snow, but our party was glad to have ice axes to use the snow up and down, rather than traveling on scree and loose rock. Care should be taken crossing thin snow sections.
Overcast skies provided us with pleasant weather for the trip in, with views of Rainier to the south and Stuart to the north. 
After dropping down from Ingalls Pass, we stopped to filter water with a view of Stuart.
We avoided a few small, thin patches of snow in the first half of the scramble from the lake to the base of the climb, but were able to find a good patch to take us almost all the way to the base.
We transitioned back to scree just below the bast of the climb. This was the reddest pink snow any of us had seen. (We did not have a collection container with us, alas.)
The route was in great shape. There are rappel anchors at the top of P1 and P2, with slung boulders. P3 and P4 have good looking cordalette at the bolted anchors. We did a double rope rap from the summit to avoid the party of 3 breaking P4 into 2 pitches and allowing them full access to the bolts at P3. They offered to mind our ropes to avoid the rope eating crack just below the summit anchor. Our basic student added some webbing to the boulder at the top of P2, reinforcing some faded webbing. Thanks, Marty! 
Single rap of P2 and then a double to the base of the climb. We had 2 x 60 m ropes. Most beta said gear from .4 to 2. I could have placed some smaller gear, and there were definitely a few spots for #3s.
We managed to descend to the lake mostly on snow and slabs staying skier's right.
We filtered water once on the way back to the car, in a beautiful spot John Bell showed me when I climbed Ingalls with him as a student. 
The flowers were beautiful. We saw a marmot, a pika, goats, chipmunks, a Western tanager, and a treeful of mountain bluebirds. Beware of mosquitoes between Ingalls Pass and the lake--they were only bothersome when we stopped to filter water. Alpine Spring Beauty was abundant on the rock. We saw lots of scarlet gilia, paintbrush, lupine, and columbine on the trail, with plenty of shooting stars in all the meadows.
Another lovely day out in the Mountains with the Mountaineers.