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Intermediate Alpine Climb - Mount Stuart/West Ridge

Jan was the primary leader and Manisha was the mentored leader for this climb. The team successfully summited on Saturday 8/20 and came all the way back to the cars.

Manisha Powar Manisha Powar
August 22, 2016
  • Road rough but passable

  • Route is in great shape. There are bivy sites at 7680, 8200 before LJT, and just above LJT, then again below WR notch, and at the summit. 8200 bivy had a reachable snow patch as of 8/20 that was about 50 feet below on the north side of the ridge. Depending on the weather, it might become unreachable.

We started out from the cars Friday morning around 11 AM, took a long break at the lake to fill up on water (carried about 3.5 liters per person, but did end up using the snow patch we found at 8200 by the bivy for another extra 1+ liter of total water).

On Day 1, we got to the 8200' bivy - which can fit about 6 people (4 bivy sites - 2, 2, 1, 1). the sites are around the top of the ridge on the left, before the class 4 exit gully on the right that gets one to the notch from where the downclimb for the base of the LJT starts.

LJT is exposed but snow free.

After reaching The Dog, we chose to go up the scissors route and drop down to the base of the Anvil to catch the WR notch. The rest of the climb to the summit went as planned. we summited around 2:45 PM.

On the way down Cascadian, we took the Cascadian Cutoff trail which helped bypass some of the final few hundred feet of choss. Look for this trail about a 1000 ft above the creek, on skier's right in the meadows.

The rest of the hike out was uneventful.

Lots of bugs in the creek area, especially in the evening.