Route:  Mt Stuart/West Ridge
Climbed:  July 19, 2002


This route is well known for difficult route finding so I'm making
this description more detailed than most.  I have a more detailed
route description with diagramed photos.  Send me e-mail if you would
like its URL.

Approach:  Ingals creek, Ingals pass, Ingals Lake...  From the follow
a trail toward the ridge running to Stuart.  Before coming to the
ridge a climbers trail will drop steeply.  Follow this down a ways,
cut off through the scrub trees.  Eventually meet the Ingals creek
trail as it diagonals up to the ridge (can be seen from Ingals lake).
Walk this to the ridge.  Pick up another climbers trail which follows
ridge crest toward Stuart, passing rocky sections to right (east).
Climb good trail to base of rocky.  (North ridge folks drop into west
side basin and traverse to goat pass.)  West ridge folks drop off east
side and traverse to start of climb.  The first gully is short.  Don't
take it.  The second is very long, take this.  

Climbing Route:  Clmib second gully all the way to it's head.  At a
few places the gully offers a couple alternate routes.  We generally
stayed in the main gully which generally was left.   Go all the way to
the head of this gully and then exit.  (You will know that you are at
the head when you can peak through a noth and look down on the north
side of the mountain.)  Exit over easy ledges to the right (left) and
enter another gully.  

Look carefully and make sure that you know your route.  The large
tower across the way and up hill is Long John's Tower.  To it's right
is a notch formed by a second, small tower.  (There is a difficult
chimbney leading up to that notch.)  The basic idea here is to climb
to the notch right of LJT, cross, and follow easy ledges around to
next gully.  We did this by climbing a gully/chimney toward LJT then
descending a hidden gully to that notch.  The gully you climb starts
out fairly easy, then finishes in two steep gullies.  We took the
right one because it was blockier.

(There are a couple possible alternatives.  First, before climbing the
steep chimneys turn around (face south) and look for a ramp and broken
ledges which traverse around a dark cliff to the notch.  I came to
some exposed moves early on and turned around, but I think that the
climbing may actually be easier than the chimneys and lead diretly to
the notch.  Second, it may be possible to climb broken ledges at the
headof the gully and cross to the left of LJT (north, between LJT and
ridge).  The descent on the other side of this looked easy.)

Assuming that you have crossed the notch and traversed the easy
ledges, you will come to another significan gully.  This gully has a
cleaver in the middle.  The near side ascends easily most of the way
toward the ridge.  The far side ascends steeply toward another tower.
Between is some dark rock which is easly traversed below about where
you came out.  The plan here is to enter the near side, acend to about
the level of the LJT-ridge notch, exit eastward up an easy ramp onto
the dark cleaver rock, cross that, traverse the headwall of the
further gully on a ledge, and exit on the far endge of the gully.  You
will know that you are entering the correct ledge because the only way
to get onto it is to climb down a tunnel created by a large flake.
The ramp drops down (exposed slab at bottom, safe if you are willing
to slide on your belly) then climbs back up the other side.  The
easiest way to get onto the far crest is also through a tunnel.

Once on the crest you can now see that there are easy ledges at about
the same elevation you are at.  Follow these around until you come to
the gully which leads to the west ridge notch.  Pay attention - you
could pass through this gully and start up a ramp on the far side.
The gully is 10 or 15 ft wide and has loose rock.  

The west ridge notch is narrow.  You can peer through it to the north
side of the mountain.  From the notch proper scramble up slabs and
easy ledges for 150 ft to the base of a steep wall.  The plan now is
to bypass this wall by climbing on the north side of the ridge.  This
is exposed 4th class.  Step on to the north side and begin a rising
traverse.  Becky says to climb for 60 ft and where the climbing gets
difficult traverse back to the ridge crest.  This will put you above
the headwall with a few steep steps to climb.  However, last time we
continued traversing on the north side.  There are a few harder but
well protected moves, though most is 4th class.  1 full rope length
(50M) will bring you to a gully which returns to the crest.  Regain the
crest by climbing an easy crack system right of the gully.  

Wether you got here by climbing the crest or the north side, you will
cross onto a slightly descending, easy ledge on the south side.
Traverse this until it gets difficult (a step down and around) then
climb up crack system toward south ridge.  I've actually taken several
different starts from the ledge, all leading to the same finish up a
corner with crack and a nearby crack leading directly to the broken
rock of the south ridge.  This part feels harder than the 5.4 rating.
There may be an easier way to finish to the south rib.

Descent:  Traverse to or around false summit.  Descend steep snow.
Enter cascadian couliar.  As you exit the couliar stay to the right.
Eventually you will pick up a clear climbers trail which leads down to
the Ingals Creek trail.  (If you try too soon you will end up on
vanishing game trails.  If you go too far left you will just have a
couple more minutes of walking on the main trail).

Summary:  Skip first short gully.  Ascend second gully to head and
cross.  Cross next gully and exit it via the small notch below LJT and
smaller tower.  Climb left side of next major gully, tunnel, ledge,
tunnel, and cross rib.  Easy ledges.  Up to west ridge notch.  Up to
head wall.  Climb on north side, return to crest, ledge on south side,
climb to south rib and then to summit.

Time from TH to Summit:  11:30.  Time from Summit to TH:  5:30.




[Route description written by Tom Unger]